[ TECHNOLOGY ] Seac AB now offers machinery for 25-100 fish/kg
Processing smaller fish just got easier For the last twenty years the tendency in the fish processing and canning industry has been that the fish have become smaller and smaller. This means that yesterday’s processing machines, designed as they were to process bigger fish, can no longer cope with today’s demand, as the fish are often smaller than originally envisaged by the engineers.
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maller sizes are also more prevalent today because increased demand for fish for human consumption has meant that a number of new fish species are now considered economically viable for commercial production. The Swedish company Seac has been watching these changes for the last decade and has developed its own brand of processing machines for smaller fish, meaning from approx 25 fish per kilo down to 100 fish per kilo.
New equipment is based on former Arenco machines By rebuilding the former Arenco machines, Arenco SFD-300 and Arenco CIS-N, Seac has, over the last eight years, acquired indepth experience in machines for processing smaller fish. A few years ago the company launched its own series of machines, named the Seac FPM (Seac Fish Processing Machines), on the market. The new Seac FPM200 nobbing machine is tailor made for each type and size of fish with its own special head and fish pocket to obtain the maximum yield from each fish. The individual head-measuring device secures the best cut just behind the gill fin and compared to a standard two-knives vacuum cutting machine yield is up to 15 higher with the Seac www.eurofishmagazine.com
An additional device fitted to a Seac nobbing machine can be used to produce the Kronsardines or deli herring, which is popular on some markets.
FPM-200 machine, says Ulf Groenqvist, the owner of Seac AB. The machine has become popular in areas where there is a clear tendency for the fish to become smaller, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea, where today you can find a demand for filleting machines for sprats/sardines/anchovy down to approx 60/80 fish/kilo and nobbing machines that can process fish down to 100 fish/kilo. The tailor made head pockets and the following fish pockets are designed for
the small bodies and smaller heads of this type of sardine, anchovy or similar fish that needs to be processed on an industrial scale. The new Seac FPM-400 is an FPM-200 combined with a filleting machine for smaller fish. This has a capacity of up to 380 pockets/minute during heading, gutting and tailing operations and 250 pockets/minute during filleting. This means that for each machine a company can save up to 15 employees heading, gutting, and tailing and up to 40
operators during filleting, claims Mr Groenqvist. The Seac FPM400 can also be fitted with an additional device to manufacture a new product, the Kronsardines or deli herring. This product gives a very high yield and has become popular on some markets.
Long-standing collaboration with Peruza Seac has been working together with Peruza, a Latvian manufacturer of processing machinery for
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