Potential Escalates for New Generation of Deboning Procedures in Red Meat
The big news in mechanical beef deboning is the potential for new automated equipment. The final provisions in FSIS's Meat Produced By Advanced Meat/Bone Separation Machinery and Recovery Systems ruling, which went into effect Jan. 5, open the door for a new generation of deboning machines.
The new deboning machines will remove meat from bones without crushing or breaking them.
Ruling's impact
One beef deboning industry expert tells Meat Marketing & Technology that he just returned from a beef plant where new automated equipment has replaced a line of trimmers. This particular packer continues labeling final product coming off the now-automated line as "meat," not "mechanically separated meat" because of the new ruling. The re-definition of "meat" is:
The product derived from the mechanical separation of skeletal muscle tissue from the bones of livestock using the advances in mechanical meat/bone separation machinery and meat recovery systems that do not crush, grind or pulverize bones, and from which the bones emerge comparable to those resulting from hand-deboning (i.e., essentially intact and in natural physical conformation such that they are recognizable, such as loin bones and rib bones, when they emerge from the machinery) which meets the criteria of no more than 0.15 percent of 150 milligrams/100 grams of product for calcium (as a measure of bone solids content) within a tolerance of 0.03 percent or 30 milligrams.
Using the advanced deboning technology, whole bones go into the deboning machines and whole bones exit the machines, the expert says.
"Only the surface meat is removed [from the bones], and tests are taken for calcium, iron and cholesterol, which would indicate the presence of marrow," the expert points out. "If a packer can prove the absence of marrow in the product, it can be called beef or pork."
Hence, the move to technology by the aforementioned plant.
When told of this particular plant's new strategy, Lloyd Carlson, quality assurance manager for Greeley, Col.-based Monfort Inc.'s Portion Foods Division, was not surprised. He predicts other plants will follow suit. The less product handled by human hands, the better, Carlson notes.
"The ergonomic situation will improve," he notes. "The news [of the ruling] was good."
Reduced labor
Packers can reduce labor on lines where employees are dedicated to trimming meat off beef necks, feather bones and button bones. These are havens for cumulative trauma disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Reducing labor does not mean cutbacks in personnel. The plant that removed its hand trimmers reassigned the employees who performed that function to other areas.
Other benefits
Product yield will also increase, a source claims, adding that it makes more sense to let deboning machines recover product.
"The product is cleaner and more sanitary. It has a higher yield and is of better quality," he adds.
Carlson agrees that quality will improve because product will not be damaged by workers and their hand trimmers.
"The product can suffer immensely," he says. "When you're pulling these button bones out of the strip, you can tear the feather bones in the back. We should let machines do this."
The new generation equipment will give packers "whole muscle meat recovery from the back and neck bones," a supplier notes.
An already-available grooved drum process can process pork necks and backs without damaging bones, and the meat can be labeled as pork, the manufacturer claims. The supplier predicts the new generation equipment will enable packers and processors to produce more value-added products.
"Testing is currently in process to determine production rates and yields," the supplier notes.