As a meat processor, improving meat yield and giveaway will be high on your list of priorities. FPE has been working with the Australian meat industry for 40 years, so your concerns are our concerns. That’s why, for the past 15 years, we’ve been working on a system to help improve the accurate batching and calculation of chemical lean in beef. Read on to find out what we discovered.
Overview:
- Chemical lean meat definition
- Importance of accuracy in chemical lean meat
- How to improve chemical lean in beef, lamb & pork
Chemical lean meat definition
‘Chemical lean’ (CL) tells you the amount of lean meat vs fat in a red meat product like beef.
Importance of accuracy in chemical lean meat
From a meat processor’s perspective, the importance of accuracy in batching and chemical lean calculations cannot be overstated.
- Accurate batching means no product giveaway
- Accurate chemical lean calculation means no lean meat giveaway
It brings higher levels of automation, increased. This has been in development for over 15 years whilst we have been working in the space of in-line X-Ray CL measurement of carton beef product..
How to improve chemical lean in beef
If you are interested in dramatically improving your throughput and CL accuracy to every packed carton or combo of beef, pork, or lamb trim, while increasing automation, we have the system for you:
The Qantum Trim Batcher
Reduce labour, eliminate rework and achieve the absolute best value pack formulation possible! In turn, this will reduce your costs, improve efficiency and boost the bottom line. It really is a win win situation.
How the Qantum Trim Batcher works
Developed in partnership with Cabinplant (Denmark), this solution was developed specifically for the Australian beef industry—but is suitable for lamb and pork trim too. The 10 step process is as follows:
- Trim size is reduced (2D cut 100 x 100) using the Magurit Galan 930
- Basic manual sortation of trim into 4 trim categories: Lean, Base, Fat, High Fat
- Auger automatically dispenses trim into plastic crate: 6-7 kg per crate
- Plastic crate is scanned through Eagle PI (X-Ray) FA3/C, revealing the weight and CL for every crate
- Any contaminants in crate are rejected from the line directly after X-Ray
- Good crates progress to a rack of 40 crates
- Software system selects 4 crates to make a carton to target weight and CL
- Robots load the 40 crate rack system and remove the selected crate to go into the next batch simultaneously (1 crate in 1 crate out constantly)
- At the packing hopper, 4 crates are tipped into the hopper and crates head back for filling (closed loop system)
- Trim in the hopper is dispensed directly into a carton
The process continues to repeat.
Key benefits
- Weight accuracy +/- 100g
- CL accuracy = +/- 0.5CL (Target CL band = +/- 1CL)
- Minimal labour – 1 person on sortation platform, 1 person on carton packing station
- Max throughput = 15,000 kg/hr = 9.2 cartons per minute
- Compact system – straight line, very simple
- System can pack cartons (any weight) or bulk bins
- System can handle cold or hot trim
- Multiple CL’s can be packed simultaneously
- No person ever touches a crate – the crate handling area can be closed off to people
- The system includes a crate washer for automatically cleaning all crates
- Crates are “parked” in the racking area of the system after washing – ready for next production day – no manual handling of crates between shifts
- Crate sanitiser step & trim sanitiser step can be added to the system
- Only decision by operator is very basic trim sortation (step 2) – the software makes the higher level decisions on what to pack based on pre-set targets and best value formulation
- System is very simple from a maintenance aspect – all equipment is very mature in development (sortation platform, Magurit, Eagle FA3/C, crate washer) – the remaining system is crates on conveyors.
With recent labour shortages in the meat processing industry, the need for higher levels of automation and optimisation of value packed product has resulted in the development of this unique Qantum Trim Batcher solution. And FPE installed our first full scale trim system in 2022! So if you’d like to find out more about meat processing equipment, the Qantum Trim Batcher, or other ways to optimise your meat processing plant, contact FPE today.
