Meat&Poultry -- April 2014 - IPPE-13

The DeboFlex pork fore-end
deboning system is a shacklebased technology that
delivers meat to line workers
in a consistent and ready-tocut position.
"With the DeboFlex, it's
one person, one task," said
Kent Sliffe, Marel's vice
president of fresh meat sales.

Shackling solutions

Stork Poultry Processing also introduced a
new advance to its big-bird evisceration line
at IPPE, which includes an 8 inch shackle
for today's larger birds. Previously 6 inch
shackles were the standard, but for plants
facing larger incoming birds weighing 1014 lbs., which is becoming the norm, larger
shackles are a necessity. With 41 big-bird
plants operating in the US today and traditional poultry plants seeing carcass sizes
increasing steadily, Stork engineers have
embraced the theory that "one size does not
fit all," when it comes to offering shackles
to adapt to today's needs.

Marel flexes its
red-meat muscle

At an event once dominated by processing
innovations for feathered species, Marel
took a page from the poultry industry in
the design of its new DeboFlex, which
made its debut at the 2014 International
Production & Processing Expo. The DeboFlex pork fore-end deboning system is
a shackle-based technology that delivers
meat to line workers in a consistent and
ready-to-cut position. With the shoulder secured by the hock in a shackle that is height
adjustable and rotates 360 degrees, easier
and more efficient skinning and deboning
of shoulders can be achieved by line workers, said Kent Sliffe, Marel's vice president
of fresh meat sales. The rotating shackle
eliminates the repetitive lifting and turn-

ing of heavy shoulders, offering processors
an ergonomic means of maximizing labor.
The random and sometimes chaotic flow
common in many traditional pork deboning operations can be made more orderly
and predictable for line workers with the
DeboFlex. The results include: increased
yield, higher capacity, improved logistics
and the elimination of heavy lifting and
excessive product handling of products by
line workers. "With the DeboFlex, it's one
person, one task," Sliffe said.
Also for red-meat processors, a combination of technologies marries the benefits
of Marel's X-ray bone detection technology
with its precision cutting/portioning function. When a bone is detected in the red
meat processing line, a knife is deployed
to make a cut before and after the site with
minimal product waste. Traditional systems would require processors to drop/
lose 40-50 lbs. of meat with every bone
detected. "We use a knife to segregate just
the bone, equal to about two or three lbs.,"
Astle said. "What we're offering is a boneremoval solution."
Various configurations are possible,
but the performance is the same. When
a bone or hard contaminant is detected, it appears in red on a control screen.
The suspected piece of meat is dropped
out of the production line and is conveyed back to the front of the line, where
workers are able to cut into exactly where
the bone is in the meat. The system uses

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technology based on Marel's portioning
knowledge to help cut the bone or contaminant from the trim product to minimize rework and improve overall yields.
Identifying the location is very precise,
Astle said. "They could almost use tweezers to retrieve it." The product then runs
through the detection line again to assure
it is void of any bones. In terms of solving
a longstanding challenge for processors,
"this is the bomb," he said.
Additionally, red meat grading is accomplished by taking a density reading
using the same X-ray scan. Typical vision
grading systems, said Astle, can only see
one side of the meat. "They can't see fat
and lean pockets inside, but X-ray can."
For more information on Marel, Stork Poultry
Processing and Townsend Further Processing, visit
www.marel.com or call: (888) 888-9107

www.MeatPoultry.com * April 2014 * IPPE Recap

http://www.marel.com

Meat&Poultry -- April 2014

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