Meat Packing Journal, May~Jun 2016, vol 3 iss 3

The international magazine for the meat and poultry industry

MEAT PACKING J O U R N A L

IFFA

the world's largest meat show kicks off in frankfurt

chicken gives you wings

May~June 2016 volume 3 | issue 3

28 billion a year eaten in north america

ISSN 2054-4685

P.62

plan for china's food safety

P.48

packaging experts tell all

P.29

understanding north america

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C o Mmen t

Keeping chicks happy

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bout a 15-minute drive down the mountainside from our Greek house is the village of Kambos. I like Kambos. Unlike our village of Vorio which has one small café that’s only open when owner Socrates feels like it, in Kambos there are two shops, a tiny eight-table restaurant run by a grandmother, an internet café with the best lattes in all of Greece and, according to my wife, happy chickens.

In nearly everyone’s backyard in Kambos are small flocks of chickens which do seem to be very content; clucking away with the sun on their backs and scratching in the garden dirt for bugs. I mentioned this to my neighbor Kostas, perhaps the most cynical man in all of Greece, and he said with a snort: “That’s stupid. How do you know these chickens are happy?”

“Because they’re in Kambos and not Vorio,” I replied. “Everyone knows life is better in Kambos. The women are more beautiful, the water is sweeter, and the chickens are happier.”

“None of that is true! [Kostas has a real bee in his bonnet about Kambos].

And the chickens. I put to you again, how can you tell if a chicken is happy?”

As much as I hated to admit it, Kostas had a point. How can you tell when a hen is happy – and does it matter?

Unfortunately for us in the meat industry, it’s beginning to more and more.

Not because of what scientists or researchers believe, but because its what a growing number of consumers are demanding: that their eggs, poultry, and red meat comes from happy animals.

In a press release put out earlier this year from the San Franciscohicken wings. The first time I had headquartered Happy Egg Company it stated: “Everyone knows I have a soft them was years and years ago at spot for animals and want to see all animals treated with the best care,” said a sports bar in Chicago. I thought to [new partner] Ross Mathews. “The Happy Egg Co. girls are like me – they enjoy myself: these will never catch on. Man, the sun, socializing, and having a good time just doing what they do naturally. when I'm wrong, I'm really wrong.

These hens are living the high life on the farm….”

This throw-away meat is being eaten But then we’re back to the basic question, how can you tell chickens are by the billions. Page 20 happy, let alone eggs? What is the criteria for measuring chicken happiness and how is it proved? People – and I’m talking the ever increasing majority who have never seen a farm – assume chickens are like us or at least like the family dog.

Any human can tell when a dog is happy – and vice-versa – but this hard-wired relationship is the exception, thanks to what scientists believe was a co-evolutionary path taken about 40,000 years ago with humans and our canine pals.

For most of the rest, it’s just anthropomorphism – attributing human emotions and behavior to wild and domestic animals. It’s why dolphins always look happy and sheep miserable.

Still, for my wife and many consumers, the concept of animal happiness is a priority. She buys eggs which claim to come from happy chickens. She was a vegetarian (until she met me) and it’s important to her that the animals we eat were raised with respect.

She wants poultry and eggs that we eat to have come from chickens that have been raised free range and she’s willing to pay for it.

A friend has the complete opposite view. He looks for the cheapest chicken at the store and can care less if they were crammed in 10 to a square foot.

“From being hatched to slaughter, it takes a broiler about 45 days,” he says. “What type of animal’s brain develops that fast so within 45 days it can judge whether life is good or not?”

What is interesting with the concept of happiness is that scientists believe we have a genetic predisposition to a level of happiness. A person who is a miserable git wins the lottery. For about six months they’re happy and then, even with their millions, they’re back to being miserable gits. Someone who is naturally happy comes down with cancer, their cat’s run over, and their mother-in-law moves in. For six months they’re feeling bad but – if they're still living – they’re back to their happy state.

Are chickens predisposed to happiness as well? I have my doubts.

The groups that seem to promote chicken happiness are almost to a one, vegan groups who will only be happy when everyone joins them eating tofu everyday. A course, six months after this happens they’ll return to their normal, miserable state and have to find another cause. Happy soybeans?

Velo Mitrovich velo@meatpacking.info @Meat_Packing

Editor's choice

C

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May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 3

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C ONTENT S

34

20

wing madness Chicken wings have conqured North America with billions sold every year.

What's keeping the rest of the world from catching on?

26

making 'em MPJ looks at how three processing equipment makers do wings

62

28

North America It's nine nations, not three. How a 30-year-old idea is still fresh

34

iffa preview World's largest meat show open this month in Frankfurt

48

48

Packaging It is the cover that sells the book. How to make your product stand out

54

wet or dry?

In beef aging, choose either or both methods with the right packaging

54 on the cover With the amount of chicken wings being sold every year, it's a real pity chickens only have two

62

China blueprint A report on how China can turn around their dismal food safety record

72

man marketing Their nickname is the 'Webers', German men who love their beef. How Welsh beef is going after this market

Also in this issue

In the next issue The Millenials are taking snacking to the extreme and one of favorites is high protein meat. We will be looking at this huge industry and how you can be part of it. Also logistics, Germany and IFFA post show review

6 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

11 - News 17 - Safety news 70 - Marketing news 74 - Product news 76 - Directory 77 - Shows & events

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ne w s

Saudis plan $2 trillion investment fund

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top Saudi prince has set out to wean his country off its heavy dependence on oil and has announced plans to create a public investment fund worth around $2 trillion.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second in line to the Saudi throne, told Bloomberg that this will “undoubtedly be the largest fund on earth.”

What this will mean for the poultry industry in Saudi Arabia is as yet unclear, but in the past when the Saudi family has made non-petroleum investments, agriculture has always got a percentage of funds.

MPJ has featured Saudi Arabia poultry in the Nov/Dec 2015, along with Jan/Feb 2016, and has always seen the Kingdom as one of the countries to watch for poultry expansion. In addition, this year saw

the first VIV MEA show in neighboring Abu Dhabi.

Along with their own rising population, Muslim demand for halal poultry is on an increase throughout the world. While halal chicken can be raised anywhere in the world as long as the ritual slaughter is approved by Islamic supervision, a Saudi Arabia sticker on the chicken makes it seem just that much more halal to many.

The public investment fund announcement came as Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, struggles to reformat its economy.

A decade-long boom left the Kingdom’s economy heavily dependent on oil, which provides most of the government’s income, and made the state far and away the country’s biggest employer.

There are longer-term worries as

well, reports The New York Times.

A recent study by the consultants McKinsey warned that with more than half of Saudi Arabia’s population under 25, a surge of young people was likely to enter the work force in the coming years. This will require the creation of almost three times as many jobs for Saudis as the Kingdom created during the 200313 oil boom.

People who have worked in Saudi Arabia though caution about packing a bag quite yet. There is very little transparency in the Kingdom’s economy – making it difficult to know who to approach in any company or government office for investment leads – and deadlines are almost always unclear.

Still, it’s hard not getting excited about a two followed by 12 zeroes, with a dollar sign in the front.

What Whole Food wants

W

hole Foods has answered the cries of animal welfare activists and announced it wants all of its suppliers to shift over to slower-growing chicken breeds.

Activists’ claim that the modern boiler grows so fast and large that its legs cannot support its weight.

The shift will take eight years and will apply to 277 million birds annually — about three percent of the USA’s broilers.

Theo Weening, the global meat buyer for Whole Foods, told USA’s National Public Radio that the slow-growing bird “is a much better, healthier chicken, and at the same time it’s a much [more] flavorful chicken as well.”

But there is a reason why the www.meatpacking.info

nickname for Whole Foods is ‘Whole Paycheck’ and Weening admits that this chicken will come with a cost.

Slower-growing breeds consume more feed per pound of meat. According to poultry breeding company Aviagen, a slower-growing breed, Rowan Ranger, consumes about 25 percent more feed while growing to a weight of six pounds, than the Ross 308 breed which the company says is the "world's most popular broiler."

According to NPR, the National Chicken Council (NCC) released a statement disputing the idea that faster-growing chickens are less healthy or are suffering.

The Chicken Council pointed out the benefits of the industry's push for ever greater efficiency. It has cut

the cost of growing chickens, reduced the amount of land required to grow chicken feed, and made chicken the most popular meat in America.

What the NCC could have added to this statement is that this is why chicken has become the most popular meat in the whole world – especially for those who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods. (See this issue’s Editor’s Comment).

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 11

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Proposed animal welfare rules for organic livestock

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nimal welfare and treatment rules might be coming soon to US organic farmers.

The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) says that the agency will propose amending the organic livestock and poultry production requirements, in order to ensure consistent application of the USDA organic regulations for organic livestock and poultry operations and maintain confidence in organically labeled products. The proposed

TexaS expansion in Middle East

T

exas Chicken – Church’s Chicken international division – has started making a play to become the largest fried chicken franchise in the growing Middle East market. A new agreement finalized with experienced Middle East restaurant franchise partner, The Olayan Group, will lead to the opening of 63 new Texas Chicken restaurants over the next several years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, and Oman.

The new Texas Chicken locations will further expand upon existing market presence.

"As we continue to strengthen our presence on the international stage, the Middle East plays a pivotal role in our expansion strategy. This is a strong consumer market," says Tony Moralejo, senior vice president & chief development officer at Texas Chicken, adding: "We have very ambitious goals for this region."

12 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

changes are based on recommendations by the National Organic Standards Board and incorporate years of public comment and suggestions by stakeholders.

“The demand for organic agriculture continues to grow each year and these proposed changes will build on USDA’s efforts to support organic producers,” says AMS Administrator Elanor Starmer. “By strengthening standards for organic livestock and poultry, we are ensuring that we meet consumer expectations and maintain the integrity

of the organic seal to support the sector’s continued growth.”

Major provisions include clarifying how producers and handlers must treat livestock and poultry to ensure their health and wellbeing throughout life, including transport and slaughter. It will also be establishing minimum indoor and outdoor space requirements for poultry.

The total retail market for organic products is now valued at more than $39 billion in the United States.

From 2014 to 2015, the sector grew by 12 percent.

Mexican poultry record levels

P

roduction and consumption of Mexican broiler meat are forecast at a record level of 3.3 million tons this year, despite the continuing potential for avian influenza. Low feed costs and continued implementation of biosecurity measures has contributed to a full recovery of the industry after being hit last year by AI. Since late 2015 no new outbreaks have been reported.

Recent data from the National Poultry Union (Union Nacional Avicola) indicates that the poultry sector, comprising broiler, turkey, and

eggs grew 4.1 percent during 2015.

Consumption is forecast at a record 4.08 million tons as increased production and affordable prices solidify broiler meat’s position as Mexican consumers’ preferred protein. The 2016 forecast represents the sixth-consecutive year of record consumption. Demand for chicken leg quarters and mechanically separated/deboned poultry meat will remain strong. Increased consumption will be primarily supported by expanding domestic production. For more on Mexico’s meat/poultry industry, see the March issue of MPJ. www.meatpacking.info

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S A F ET Y

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Link between parasite and suicide

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parasite found in undercooked meat, contaminated water, and feces from infected cats could cause aggressive behavior, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, or even suicide in humans, according to a paper in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

The idea that a tiny protozoan parasite can influence our minds is not new, however evidence is mounting that suggests the psychological consequences of infection could be much worse than previous thought.

Still, not all scientists are onboard with its findings and Duke University researchers suggest there might not be anything to worry about after all.

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a parasitic protozoan that cause the disease toxoplasmosis. Found worldwide, T. gondii is capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals, but wild and domestic cats are the only known definite hosts in which the parasite can undergo sexual reproduction.

In humans, T. gondii is one of the most common parasites in the world – particularly in developed nations – with estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of the world’s population has been exposed to and may be chronically infected with T. gondii, although it varies from country to country with France being the

highest at 84 percent. In the USA it’s though to infect around 60 million people.

However, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of those who are infected, very few have symptoms – commonly month long ‘flu-like’ – because a healthy person’s immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness. The CDC says the undercooked meats most commonly associated with T. gondii are pork, lamb, and venison.

While many people are not familiar with the parasite’s name, they are with the behavior it causes in rodents thanks to television science shows, which often times call it the “suicide parasite”.

While the parasite doesn’t seem to harm cats, it does harm rodents who eat the cat feces and become infected with the parasite. Once in this new host, the parasite changes and migrates, eventually settling as cysts in various tissues, including the host’s brain. There it changes the behavior of the rodent, making them lose their fear of – and even becoming sexually aroused by – the smell of cats by hijacking neurochemical pathways in the rodent’s brain.

Cats then easily kill and eat the infected rodent, with the parasite returning to the bowls of the cat where it can reproduce.

Researchers at universities across the country analyzed data collected from 1991 through 2008 and confirmed a relationship, previously theorized, between T. gondii and self-directed aggression and other psychiatric disorders, according to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

“These data are consistent with previous studies suggesting a relationship between T. gondii and self-directed aggression (ie, suicidal behavior) and further add to the biological complexity of impulsive aggression both from a categorical and a dimensional perspective,” reports The Journal.

By examining the data collected from patients during the 17-year period, the researchers found that people who had evidence of T. gondii infection were as much as twice as likely to exhibit aggression and impulsive behaviors, including suicide.

Regardless whether the host animal is a mouse or a human, research has found that the parasite attacks the brain. While limited information exists on the causes of human aggression, new research is pointing to inflammatory or infectious processes as a possible reason, states The Journal. Patients with significant histories of aggression – ie, intermittent explosive disorder – may have a latent infection with T. gondii.

Meat slicers can be Listeria risk

M

anagers and employees at more than half of surveyed delis admitted they are not cleaning their meat slices often enough to meet Food and Drug Administration food codes, according to a recent study by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Listeria monocytogenes (Listeria) causes the third highest number of www.meatpacking.info

foodborne illness deaths in the USA annually, according to the CDC. Mechanical slicers pose cross-contamination risks in retail delis and are an important source of Listeria cross-contamination. However, good slicer cleaning practices can reduce this risk.

FDA standards call for slicers to be fully disassembled, cleaned, and sanitized at least every four hours

while being used. The survey found that it was the independent and smaller delis who were the worse offenders.

Chain-owned delis, on-the-otherhand, required manager food safety training, had knowledgeable workers, and concise written cleaning policies. These delis cleaned their slicers more frequently than other delis.

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 15

S A F ET Y

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Jail for fake jerky

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court in China has sentenced 10 people to prison terms ranging from 16 months to 15 years for selling pork as beef jerky, reports China’s Xinhua news agency.

The Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court in Zhejiang Province gave a man (surname Fang) 15 years in prison and fined him 4 million yuan ($618,800) for his role in the scam.

According to the indictment, Fang asked a man (surname Zhu), who ran a meat processing plant in Wenzhou with his wife to manufacture the fake beef jerky. They added

beef powders, caramel pigment and other additives to pork.

Zhu and his wife rented three rooms in a remote village to secretly produce the fake jerky from June 2014 to January 2015, churning out between 250 to 500 kg of adulterated product every day. Zhu’s daughter, son-in-law, and other family members also participated in the production.

Zhu was sentenced to 15 years in jail and fined 1.5 million yuan.

The other eight defendants were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 16 months to 10 years.

1.97m lb recall

Pathogen in beef CANADA: Fraser Valley Meats of British Columbia is recalling lean and extra lean ground beef from the marketplace due to E. coli O103 bacteria. Consumers should not consume the recalled products.

Canadian authorities did not give the quantities being recalled.

Known allergen USA: Namias of Arizona, Inc. is recalling around 19,200 pounds of chicken products due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen, the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced. The products contain hydrolyzed soy protein, a known allergen which is not declared on the product label. The problem was discovered by FSIS personnel during a routine label review at the establishment. Hydrolyzed soy is a component of the chicken base used to manufacture the products.

Listeria in chicken USA: Sally Sherman Foods of Mount Vernon, New York, is recalling 3,004 pounds of various chicken products that may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes. The contaminated chicken was used in five different chicken salads.

A

spen Foods, a division of Koch Poultry Company of Chicago, Illinose, is recalling a staggering 1,978,680 pounds of frozen, raw, stuffed, and breaded chicken products that may be contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis, the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced. Nineteen brands are involved in the recall.

FSIS was notified of a cluster of Salmonella enteritidis illnesses in June 2015. Working in conjunction with Minnesota State Departments of Health and Agriculture, FSIS 16 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

determined that there was a link between the chicken products from Aspen Foods and this illness cluster.

Based on epidemiological evidence and traceback investigations, three case-patients have been identified in Minnesota wth illness onset dates ranging from May to June 2015.

An issue with the product is although it appears to be cooked, it is in fact raw. That said, some case-patients reported following the cooking instructions on the label and using a cooking thermometer to ensure the product was cooked.

Glass causes recall USA: Nestle USA Inc. is recalling 267,024 pounds of chicken pizza products, produced at its Little Chute, Wisconsin, establishment, and chicken lasagna products, produced at its Springville, Utah, plant that may be contaminated with extraneous materials. The problem was discovered after the firm received multiple consumer complaints regarding small pieces of glass in foods.

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S A F ET Y

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If you thought horsemeat was bad…

W

hile food fraud has been around since Roman days and most probably well before, it was a German chemist/food lover living in London in 1820 who launched the first scientific attack on food fraud.

Frederick Accum was upset about the state of food in London and to attack the food fraudsters, wrote A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons. Not only did the chemist report on shocking food fraud, he also offered a number of easy ways for people to test their food for adulterations.

Continuing on this tradition of food fraud forensics is Professor Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol and biologist Nicola 18 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

Temple’s Sorting the Beef from the Bull which takes a real international look at food fraud and the successes and failures as to how it’s being detected.

Estimates of what food fraud costs the global food industry each year ranges from $10 billion to $49 billion, depending on the source. In the UK it’s estimated that around 10 percent of food on supermarket shelves has been adulterated and in the USA the percentage is suspected of being higher.

At best, the product used in the fraud causes no harm; at worse it kills, and in between are hundreds of thousands of food poisoning cases which are often times hard to pin down to a specific reason, cause,

or source.

Evershed and Temple look at a series of 'bite-size' food fraud cases from around the world and go into detail as to the forensics involved in detecting food adulterations. While the title might make you think it only covers meat fraud cases such as the recent horsemeat scandal, they cover as well topics such as olive oil, honey, seafood, and beverages. No matter what your primary interest, this approach works because not only does it give you a broader view of adulterations, in meat cases, there are often other issues involved as well. For example, fake spices or adulterated powdered milk used in processed meats such as sausages.

Some of the cases looked at include: ‘Maggot’ Pete Roberts who between 1995 and 2001 redirected over a million pounds of condemned poultry back into the human food supply chain.

The 2008 melamine scandal in China which saw an estimated 300,000 children fall ill in China when milk powder was adulterated with nitrogen-rich organic compound, melamine.

Creating ham out of bits, pieces, and a bit of glue.

What the two authors do extremely well is to explain the science involved in forensics work. They also made a good effort in writing to both sides of the Atlantic with dollar/pound usage throughout.

In addition, Evershed and Temple put things into perspective. While the two are quick to point out problems in the food indsutry, they are just as quick to point out where problems exist only in consumers' minds.

If you are involved in the food industry in any form, this book should be on your shelf.

Sorting the Beef from the Bull: the science of food fraud forensics Richard Evershed and Nicola Temple 2016 Bloomesbury Available worldwide with Amazon www.meatpacking.info

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C hic k en

win g s

Wing craze shows no sign of slowing Who would have ever figured that a throw-away chicken piece has become the most valuable item on a bird. MPJ looks at the US established phenomena of chicken wings and why they’re here to stay

E

ven before the kick-off started this year’s US Super Bowl in January, there was already a clear winner – chicken wings.

While chicken wings are eaten throughout the year as a snack – usually in a franchise restaurant or bar – chickens must be dreading the day of the Super Bowl like no other because that’s when things get really crazy.

According to Tom Super at the US National Chicken Council, Americans ate around 1.3 billion wings on Super Bowl Sunday, with nearly all the wings coming from US grown birds. In case the number seems small as it’s written, here it is in long form: 1,300,000,000 wings, weighing 162,500,000 pounds. That’s enough chicken wings for every man, woman, and child in the USA to have four wings each. Considering that fact that not all Americans eat chicken wings, MPJ suspects there are some Americans eating a lot of chicken wings. The amazing thing is, that figure is up 37.5 million from last year, as it was up from the year before and the year before and the year before….

But wait, it gets even crazier.

According to Super, throughout the year around 28 billion wing segments are consumed in the US, with segments being whole wings typically cut in half, making a ‘drumette’ (also spelled 'drummette') and a ‘flat’.

While chicken wings can be found throughout the world such as Japan and Germany, they have yet to take off the way they have in the States. If

20 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

you are trying to figure out the next big thing in Europe or Asia, get on a plane to Buffalo, New York, today.

“Remember, this is primarily a North American item,” says Dane Woods, general manager of Cantrell chicken processing equipment. “It should grow quite a lot when the international markets see the value in segmented wings.”

throw-away

A

ccording to Joe Gasbarro, president of Prime Equipment Company, it used to be in the 1950s-60s that some chicken processing plants would even send the wings to be rendered – there just wasn’t any demand for them. But that started to changed in the late 1960s with the popularity of the Buffalo wings [see Wing History]. Wings were being sold – cut, fried, and covered with hot sauce – originally by restaurants in Buffalo, New York. They were soon catching on elsewhere.

“The difference, a course, wasn’t just the hot sauce or the frying. The innovation was also in cutting the wing into three pieces – the drumette, the two-bone flat, and the tip, which was usually discarded,” says Gasbarro. “The drumette and flat are easier and more fun to eat – and there's no denying that fried wing meat tastes great. It didn't hurt that customers who ate hot wings also tended to buy more beer to drink, which made wings especially popular for bar owners. www.meatpacking.info

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May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 21

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As the demand for cut wings grew in the late 1960s and early 1970s, processors started cutting wings in their plants, usually with band saws, by hand.

“My dad, Geno, realized there was a safer way, and he came up with the automated wing wheel to make the two cuts mechanically,” says Gasbarro. “About 10-years-ago, Prime Equipment Group innovated our CWS-Series Chicken Wing Segmentor, which was designed to be placed alongside a cone line or used off-line as an ergonomically correct way to reduce labor, increase A-grade cuts, up worker safety and accommodate very high throughput.

“Food trends are always interesting to follow, especially for people like us who have been in the industry for more than 60 years. To see the price of wings now occasionally eclipse the price of boneless, skinless breast? Historically speaking, that's pretty amazing.”

And indeed, the price of wings continues to rise. As this issue went to print, the Daily Northeast Broiler/Fryer Parts report from the US Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Marketing Service listed whole wings selling at $1.81/lb, tenders at $1.64/lb and boneless/ skinless breasts at $1.14/lb (wholesale) – a part of the chicken once thrown away is selling for nearly $0.70 more than boneless, skinless breasts!

The retail price of chicken wings tends to hit its peak in January leading up to the event, but that clearly doesn’t deter consumers. In 2014, nearly 12% of Buffalo Wild Wings‘ sales came from the Super Bowl alone and a spokesperson for Wingstop, the nation’s top chicken wing chain, says that its sales generally increase by nearly 200% the day of the game.

finding wings

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he National Chicken Council estimates that of the wings eaten during the Super Bowl, 75 percent will come from food service outlets and 25 percent from retail grocery stores. According to CHD Expert’s foodservice database, Easy2FIND, over 300 new Chicken Wing restaurants opened in 2015, including more than 30 in December 2015 – a figure which angered some vegetarian groups which complain that there are more chicken wing franchises opening than healthy frozen yogurt stands.

According to CHD, the top five chicken wing chains in the United States in terms of number of units and market share are Wingstop (44%), Pizza Hut’s WingStreet (25%), Hurricane Grill & Wings (6%), Wow Café & Wingery (4%), and Wing Zone (4%). As for Buffalo Wild Wings, 22 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

www.meatpacking.info

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its1,100+ full service restaurants with full bar, are classified as a Bar & Grill taking them out of this statistic, despite the main reason why customers flock there, spending around $1 billion last year at the franchise.

This leaves many wondering if the demand for wings has been fueled by the franchises?

“That certainly has been a large part of it, says Gasbarro. “The chains really helped to spread the popularity of the chicken wing.

Hooters and Buffalo Wild Wings in the 1980s really made wings a thing, and dozens more chains sprouted up.

“Mom-and-pop restaurants and sports bars and taverns also made wings a staple. Of course, once people had them in restaurants, they also wanted to eat them at home. That demand led to many brands selling frozen, ready-to-cook wings.

“Because so many people go to bars to watch the Super Bowl, and those bars often serve wings, the hot wing has become a true staple of Super Bowl weekend. Just as you can't have www.meatpacking.info

win g s

Thanksgiving without turkey, you can't watch the Super Bowl without wings. The demand for wings peaks every year with the Super Bowl, with additional peaks for the bigger sporting events throughout the year.”

Woods echoes this comment to a point.

“Sports bars push them of course, but there are quite a few smaller chains that the wings are their main promotion. You see the cut wings in a lot of convenient stores, pizza establishments, etc, as well.”

Chicken wings sold at grocery stores and supermarkets skew towards households with three people or more, younger Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and females 35-54, according to IRI FreshLook Household Panel Data. “Each one of these categories presents an attractive target for retailers,” Tom Super notes.

Thrown also into this eating frenzy are the chicken wing festivals held around the world.

Perhaps the most famous is the National Buffalo Wing Festival held each year since 2001 in Buffalo, New York, where it all started. Last year May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 23

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around 70,000 visitors came from 64 countries and eat their way through 25 tons of chicken wings.

Others call themselves Wing Fest or Wingfest and are held from Peoria, Illinois, to London, UK, to Hawaii. That said, an attempt by a chef at Mawson Station – Australia’s base in Antarctica – to hold a small wing festival never caught on.

wing history

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eep-fried chicken wings have long been a staple of Southern cooking. But the concept of cooking wings in peppery hot sauce was born in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, when co-owner Teressa Bellissimo cooked leftover wings in hot sauce as a late-night snack for her son and his friends. The guys liked them so much that the Bellissimos put them on the menu the next day. Served with celery slices and bleu cheese sauce, “Buffalo Wings” were an instant hit.

Dick Winger, who sold hot sauce to the bar, went on the road with Dominic Bellissimo, the owners’ son, to promote the item and sell hot sauce, and the item gradually caught on with restaurant operators around the country.

The concept hit the big time in 1990, when 24 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

McDonald’s began selling Mighty Wings at some of its restaurants. KFC rolled out Hot Wings a year later, and Domino’s Pizza introduced its own wings in 1994. They’ve remained hot ever since.

A course the expansion of wings from one coast of North America to the other hasn’t been without its share of controversies. For example, once you leave Buffalo city limits can you call your wings “Buffalo” wings much like how champagne needs to come from the Champagne region of France. Some purists, too, claim that once you leave Buffalo, the quality of wings goes down.

The rise of the chicken wing and its correlation to American football all had to do with timing, according to Super.

Cooking the whole bird was trendy in the 1960s and 70s, but in the 1980s US consumers started preferring boneless-skinless breast meat, and wings became an inexpensive byproduct for chicken producers. Restaurants and bars realized they could charge low prices for the relatively inexpensive protein, and due to the spicy/salty nature of the sauce, they discovered that beer sales would go through the roof when customers ate wings.

At the same time, sports bars with multiple TVs and satellite dishes were becoming more and more common in America thanks to rapidly developing technology; and the most popular sporting event to watch with friends in bars is football. Wings were easily shareable and affordable, a great “group food” to eat with other people, and are the perfect pairing with a pitcher of beer. And so the pigskin-chicken wing bond was born.

The question has to be now: can Buffalostyle chicken wings catch on across the world?

“The demand should continue to grow when international markets see the value in segmented wings,” says Woods. “I think you will see some interest in Mexico and we have spoken to Asian customers as well.”

“It’s probably fair to say that wings were wellpast the ‘fad’ stage at least two decades ago,” says Gasbarro. They’re a staple at sports bars, taverns, restaurants, and at home. It doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere, and in fact, are becoming more popular outside the US. “More and more of our customers – poultry processors – are telling us they see demand continuing to rise around the world. Whether it’s restaurant franchises like Pelicana Chicken expanding quickly from Korea throughout Asia, or from processors who cut wings for export to other markets, wings are big business.

“It’s hard to think that they won’t continue to catch on. I mean, who doesn’t love chicken wings once they try them?” www.meatpacking.info

CWCS-8400 Wing Segmenter

Moving forward‌ always

A better approach to parts, equipment, systems & solutions.

US Patent No. 8,517,805, US Patent No. 8,641,487, US Patent No. 8,702,480 and US Patent No. 9,078,452

At Cantrell, we are proud to help move the poultry industry forward with truly innovative equipment and solutions. Our CWCS-8400 Wing Segmenter provides ultimate versatility with accurate cuts while running at high capacity.

Capable of segmenting up to 170 wings per minute into two or three segments on a processing line or as a standalone application, the Wing Segmenter properly orients the wing at any line speed for accuracy on each individual cut.

Designed with the ability to handle varying sizes of wings, the Wing Segmenter enables processors to cut tips, flats and drummettes all at one location with simple adjustments during operation. This unique system greatly reduces water consumption by applying only a mist in strategic locations, as well as reducing

Come visit us in Hall B #7037

energy consumption with the use of only one motor in general applications.

The Wing Segmenter incorporates a shackle transport and transfer system to cut the wings uniformly, eliminating the possibility of loading error. Easy access for cleaning, combined with minimal parts usage, also greatly reduces maintenance costs.

Cantrell. Moving forward by designing and supplying innovative equipment, service, parts, systems and solutions that work for you.

1400 Bradford Street Ext. | Gainesville, GA 30501 | p: 770.536.3611 f: 770.531.0832 | 1.800.922.1232

www.cantrell.com

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marel

Chicken wing

Wing with a 'handle' After achieving popularity in France, Western Europe, and now Poland, the wingstick is conquering the rest of Europe, Asia, and Latin America as a popular, trendy product.

A wingstick is the first joint of a chicken wing, processed in a particular way which exposes the end of the bone. The result is a substantial piece of ‘meat on a stick’, which can be consumed as a handy, easy-to-prepare cocktail snack or a barbecue product. An advantage over traditional-style chicken wings in the USA is that your hands stay cleaner eating wingsticks.

For several years now, the wingstick has been a popular product in France – the country where it all started – which has been followed by other EU countries. Recently, Poland, with its upcoming economy and fast growing poultry industry, has also embraced this 'chicken snack with a handle'.

Wingsticks have been produced manually, but to meet the growing demand for wingsticks, Marel Poultry created the Stork Wingstick Module. This inline, automated processing solution turns chicken wings into this popular snack and can be installed as an option on a Stork ACM-NT/MX cut-up system.

Preparation The task of the Wingstick Module is to prepare the first wing joint for harvesting, while the wing is still attached to the chicken.

Driven by the overhead conveyor, the products arrive at the module. First, guides stretch and bend the wing to position it optimally. Next, a rotating blade cuts off the second joint from the first joint in such a way that the meat of the first joint retracts a little, revealing the bare bone – the 'stick'. After this, harvesting

26 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

of the first joint can be carried out by the wing cutter of the Stork ACM-NT/MX cut-up system or the Stork FHF-XB front-half deboning system.

According to Stork, the PDS-NT information and production control system ensures complete software management of the Wingstick Module. This allows the module to operate selectively using so called production 'recipes'. This implicates that the dynamic infeed guides of the module only pick up the wings which are qualified to enter the process, according to the recipe settings. Unwanted wings will bypass the module.

This automated method of wingstick processing doesn't need any manual labor at all. If customer demand for wingsticks drops temporarily, it is very easy to switch the module in-or-out of line by an optional raising and lowering mechanism which can be operated manually or automatically.

Depending on the size of the product handled, fine-tuning adjustment of the height during production is possible. In all cases, this Stork inline wingstick concept streamlines the production process and achieves a consistently high quality level, thus providing additional value to the product, says Marel.

Inline marinating If required, wingsticks can be marinated to give that extra taste with the Stork ValueDrum. This is an option for inline marinating of wingsticks and ensures an equal distribution of additives over the product. Supply of product to the machine is done in small batches directly from the cut-up line, keeping the product flow inline.

A unique transfer system moves batches from segment to segment during mixing. A dosing unit per segment can add dry and/or wet additives as required. Rotating elements provide the mixing and massaging action, which distributes additives evenly.

www.meatpacking.info

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Georgia plant runs 330 wings a minute Fieldale Farms is a family business, still owned by its founders, but has grown to become one of the largest independent poultry farms in the world. Besides shipping poultry under its own or private labels throughout the USA, it also ships to 50 other countries.

One of its processing plants in Cornelia, Georgia, recently needed to improve the quality of its products and the speed of its wing segmenting operation, according to Jerry Franklin, plant manager. Franklin says he found the answer with the purchase of two Cantrell CWCS-8400 Wing Segmenters.

“There is no comparison to the improvement of the cuts now versus our past operation,” says Franklin. “It’s much better now. We can run 330 pieces per minute; it’s much faster than our past operation.”

According to Cantrell, its Wing Segmenter offers flexibility, accuracy, and ease of use to an operation, being designed to make all wing cuts in one place and do it more accurately, at high line speeds, on birds of various sizes and with less labor. It can run with a cone line or in an off-line application.

The Wing Segmenter properly orients the wing at any line speed for accuracy on each individual cut. Cantrell says its shackle transfer eliminates misfeeds.

“If you’re looking to upgrade your three-piece wing operation, you should look at Cantrell,” says Franklin.

Dane Woods, general manager of Cantrell explains its operation. “It’s a simple process really. The wing is removed by a person on a cone line – a cone line is nothing more than an assembly line with each person assigned one task per chicken front. The wing is removed from the carcass and inserted on a shackle line that transports the wing to our Segmenter which cuts the wing into the three needed pieces.”

Woods is seeing birds getting bigger and says that fortunately Cantrell’s machines can handle a very wide rang on wing size, adding that this is one of the important selling points for the system.

“Our Segmenter not only reduces labor but due to the accuracy of our machine, it’s value added as well,” says Woods, adding that it cuts more accurate than hand cut wings and is definitely safer. “It also increase volume and the accuracy of the cut is not surpassed by any other system on the market.”

www.meatpacking.info

The steady growth of wing popularity has led to over 400 Prime Equipment Group’s CWS Wing Segmentors being sold in the US and around the world.

“What drives that is pretty simple,” says Joe Gasbarro, president of Prime. “CWS Wing Segmentors achieve up to 98 percent A-grade cuts, they remove expensive labor by being more efficient at up to 200 wings per minute, they increase worker safety dramatically over hand saws, and they pay for themselves with upgraded cuts and labor savings extremely quickly.

“Looking at how much money on of our Wing Segmentors can make a processor, they make very sound financial sense.”

According to Prime, the CWS-Serics machines allow the wing rounder to focus on the product and the cut, and not be distracted by looking for a moving shackle. When the rounder can focus on the cut he/she can ‘hit the mark’ and maximize yield by making more precise cuts in the proper locations.

“What really makes the Prime’s approach so innovated is the fact that the Wing Segmentor can be placed directly adjacent the cone de-boning, or cut-up line,” says Gasbarro. “This allows the same person who cuts the wing from the front half to easily and quickly grade the wing and load the wing into the machine in one motion that covers only a few inches. The machine then splits the wing into three pieces, each of which can be fed to its own conveyor.”

Gasbarro says that wing drumettes and and flats historically have been sold to customers by the piece – 25 or 50 cents each, for example. Now, since the birds – and therefore the wings – are getting larger, restaurants have a harder time sourcing the smaller wings that make that by-the-piece pricing so appealing to customers. These days, more and more, restaurants are charging by the pound – $8 per pound of wings, for example. That’s a huge shift in sales strategy.

“On the processing side, the machinery has to be adaptable to different bird sizes. Our machine can handle a wide range of wing sizes, using a positioning process that allows a degree of selfalignment for accurate cuts,” says Gasbarro. “For extremely wide variance in flock sizes, individual product holders can be changed out. Some plants will even swap-out those holders during lunch to run two widely different bird sizes between morning and afternoon.”

PRIME EQUIPMENT GROUP

CANTTRELL

More than 400 machines sold

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 27

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largest market Success in understanding

You think you understand North America, how it thinks, works, and operates. You were born and live there, or you studied North America in school – what could you possibly not know. Quite a bit. MPJ looks at a confusing continent

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orget what you were taught about the USA and North America back in your school days. No matter if you grew up in Boise, Idaho, or Frankfurt, Germany, you were taught that North America is made up of three continents, with the USA having 50 states, Mexico 31, and Canada 10 provinces and three territories.

That knowledge is fine if your desire is to be a map maker, but if your want is to crack the US market or you’re an American/ Canadian/Mexican

www.meatpacking.info

equipment or meat provider and want to expand throughout North America, the realty is this; North America is made up of separate nations and we’re not talking about the USA, Canada, or Mexico.

Mistakes that even locals make is believing that all of North America is the same. A hot, peppery bacon flavor they love in Arizona could leave them screaming for water in Minnesota.

Humor that might have them falling out of the chairs in the South will get nothing but puzzled

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 29

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looks in British Columbia. While pig gestation cages have most San Franciscans upset – not that any could pick one out of a lineup – it doesn’t even rate a raised eyebrow in Iowa.

Cuts and names of meats, spices, and even preferred packaging can vary from state to state, province to province. Even something as simple as a pancake gets also called hotcake, griddlecake, flapjacks, and flannel cake depending where you are. Get it right and you can make a fortune; get it wrong and you’ll be left wondering what could have gone wrong.

This variance in culture can even vary in a state.

In 1981, Washington Post editor Joel Garreau came up with the idea that North America is made up of Nine Nations. Now, 35-years later what he wrote in The Nine Nations of North America holds just as true today as it did back then.

Understand the nations, and you’ll understand your market.

Back in the 1970s, almost a hundred reporters around the country – Washington Post bureau chiefs, rovers, freelancers and Joel Garreau, their desk-bound editor – were trying to get their arms around how North America worked.

Importantly, they were not trying to come up with a consensus of how it should work but, instead, how it did work. By the time their research was finished, over 800 people had contributed ideas.

“State by province by region, we started drawing the fault lines on maps, and sometimes on cocktail napkins. Forget those nice neat rectangles in the middle of the US,” says Garreau. “Let’s be real, the mountains of western Colorado are totally alien from the wheat fields of eastern Colorado. And Miami is part not of Florida, but its own watery Caribbean realm.

And what a terrible idea is ‘California.’ It behaves as if it covers three warring civilizations.”

The result was Garreau’s 1981 book, The Nine Nations of North America. Readers’ reaction was astonishing for the book revealed something much deeper. It turned out to be a map of culture and values, which have nothing to do with existing state and national boundaries.

“More than three decades after publication, two things amaze me: how little the boundaries have changed and how much chatter this idea is getting recently,” says Garreau. “Much of the online discussion in the last few years has been spurred by dismay over American national gridlock and the ‘nine nations’ divisions that fuel it. The gridlock has grown, but the divisions are not new.

“Despite the turbulence in technology, finance, energy, population, mobility, and polity, the boundaries still make sense as drawn in 1981 – even where events have gone exactly 30 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

opposite my expectations. Check out the last few presidential election results at the US county level [and the current one], and these boundaries still pop right out at you. In Canada, it’s even more striking.”

According to Garreau what seems to really endure is culture and values. “They are slow to change, and far more so than I originally guessed. The layers of unifying flavor and substance that define these nations still explain the major storms through which our public affairs pass. And Nine Nations is also a map of power, money and influence, the patterns of which have only deepened.

“Travel is still the great North American pastime because of our enduring diversity. Out of a sense of adventure, we still look forward to picking up our belongings and taking a new job in a different place. Trying on different values, different senses of the pace at which life should be lived, different attitudes about art, food and ethnic origin, a different relationship to nature.

Yet every North American also knows a place where, on your way back from your wanderings, surroundings stop feeling threatening, confusing or strange. Ultimately, that is the reason we are nine nations. When you’re from one, and you’re in it, you know you’re home.”

Garreau’s vision is not perfect. Somewhere along the way he seemed to forget that all of Mexico fits into North America, not just the northern most Mexican states. Also, in 1981 desk top computers were still a dream. Would a new map have Silicon Islands where the IT booms have occurred? However, the vast majority of what he wrote remains as true today as it did back then. If you’re doing business in North America, you need to come to accept the nations.

The nine nations of North America, as proposed by Garreau include:

The Foundry Includes New York, Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes Region. At the time of publication (1981), The Foundry region was in significant decline as a manufacturing center. The region includes the metropolitan areas of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, and Detroit.

Garreau selected Detroit as the capital city of this region but considered Manhattan an anomaly within the region.

MexAmerica With a capital city of Los Angeles, Garreau proposed that the Southwestern United States (including California's Central Valley) and Northern Mexico would be a region onto itself. www.meatpacking.info

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Quebec The empty quarter Ecotopia

New England The Foundry

The Breadbasket

Dixie

MexAmerica

The Islands

Stretching from Texas to the Pacific Coast, MexAmerica's common Mexican heritage and the Spanish language unite this region.

The Breadbasket Much of the Midwest, stretching from northern Texas to the southern parts of the Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), this region is essentially the Great Plains and is, according to Garreau, the heartland of North America. Garreau's proposed capital city is Kansas City.

Ecotopia Named after a book of the same name, Ecotopia with a capital city of San Francisco is the liberal Pacific Coast from southern Alaska to Santa Barbara, including the Washington, Oregon, and Northern California metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.

New England Consisting of what is traditionally known as New England (Connecticut to Maine), this region of the nine nations includes the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, along with the Atlantic province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The capital of New England is Boston. www.meatpacking.info

The Empty Quarter The Empty Quarter includes everything from about 105 degrees West longitude to Ecotopia on the Pacific Coast. It also includes everything north of the Breadbasket so it includes all of Alberta and Northern Canada. The capital city of this sparsely populated nation is Denver.

Dixie The Southeastern United States except for Southern Florida. Some refer to Dixie as being the former Confederate States of America but it doesn't travel directly along state lines. It includes southern Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.

The capital city of Dixie is Atlanta.

Quebec Garreau's only nation that consists of a single province or state is Francophone Quebec. Their constant efforts at succession led him to create this unique nation out of the province. Obviously, the capital of the nation is Quebec City.

The Islands Southern Florida and the Caribbean islands comprise the The Islands. With a capital city of Miami. At the time of the book's publication, the main industry was drug smuggling.

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 31

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Paying for qualitY Many in North America are looking at eating meat less often but when they do, they want it to be special and they are willing to pay for it – be it homegrown or imported. Good news for those banking on this trend, it’s set to continue with the Millennials

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ike wine and the first sip after the cork comes out, you can never be sure with a steak how it will taste until you take that first bite, which is really the only way to know if a steak is going to be good or not.

That’s why it is so important to have a system in place that helps predict product performance, says Daryl Tatum, Colorado State University meat scientist. The end result will then be “consistently providing consumers with a pleasurable eating experience at a compelling price,” he says. In other words, consumers are willing to pay more for beef as long as the eating experience justifies the price.

In his new research review, “Recent trends: beef quality, value and price,” Tatum combined the results of several studies to provide a comprehensive overview of the grading system’s ability to predict sensory performance and value of beef.

The results say consumers who want more than a ‘run of the mill’ eating experience should reach for premium Choice or Prime.

With Prime, there’s a 97% chance of having a good eating experience, and that is 93% with premium Choice, but low Choice moves to 82%.

Select is a “roll of the dice,” Tatum explains, with a one-in-three chance of having a negative experience.

“After sorting for brands, what’s left in the Choice box isn’t too special,” Tatum says, noting that at least a third of the total Choice category is sold in branded beef and premium programs.

Moving up on the grading scale helps improve the odds dramatically. The odds of a good eating experience are 2.9 times greater when trading up from low Choice to premium Choice.

Economic signals reflect that reality. “Sensory performance does align with the price difference in the trade,” he says.

From 2012 to 2014, the average carcass grid values showed a $13.64 per hundredweight (cwt.) premium for Prime, on down to a $10.09/ cwt. discount for Select. Charting those amounts along with the meat sensory measurements

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shows a linear relationship.

To the grading system critics, Tatum says, “When I look at these things, it seems to be working pretty well. I don’t think we’d have been able to trade beef at the prices we have been without some performance behind it,” he adds.

History demonstrated what happened when marbling wasn’t part of the equation as beef got leaner and the industry tried to compete with other proteins on price alone.

“Demand kept tanking,” Tatum says. “A lot of the quality signals and trends that we see today, began back then.”

He referenced the opposite trends for commodity beef versus the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brand, which got its start in 1978 and saw dramatic sales increases at a time when beef sales were declining overall.

Yet, much of the early beef science suggested marbling was not as important in younger animals. One study found it accounted for as little as 10% of the variation in eating quality.

But work done in 2013 shows marbling explains up to 61% of the variation in overall product performance consisting of juiciness, tenderness and flavor attributes.

“Advances in technology and improved methodology have allowed us to uncover some of those relationships and we’re doing a better job of measuring the differences,” Tatum says.

From sensory science to instrument grading, there are more tools that add precision to measuring the relationships between marbling and eating quality.

Today’s science is convincing and fits well with the economics, Tatum says. The only way to be sure that an “experience good” is going to give you a good experience is to make use of trusted marketing parameters so that it becomes more of a “search good,” something you seek out repeatedly because of more favorable experiences.

A certain brand, variety and vintage will increase your odds, but, “you never really know until you uncork the bottle,” he says.

Or take that first juicy bite.

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 33

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messe frankfurt

IF FA

IFFA 2016

THE WORLD's LARGEST MEAT SHOW It comes just once every three years but when it arrives, there is no holding back.

Expectations are running high for this year’s show

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he world’s largest show for the meat industry – held every third year – is getting ready to kick off in the German city of Frankfurt.

This year organizer Messe Frankfurt expects in the region of 60,000 visitors from over 140 countries. Drawing them in will be 960 exhibitors from around 50 countries, including all market leaders who will be presenting their top innovations at the fair. In the fully bookedup exhibition halls, they will show new products, technologies, and solutions for all stages of the meat-processing chain on around 1 million square feet of exhibition space.

34 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

Wolfgang Marzin, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Messe Frankfurt: “IFFA has been held in Frankfurt for 45 years and, during this time, has developed into the leading international trade fair for the sector.

Together with our partners, I am delighted to once again announce the top event for the meat sector.”

Richard Clemens, Managing Director of the Food Processing and Packaging Machinery Association of the VDMA, conceptual partner of IFFA: “For machinery manufactures, IFFA is the most important trade fair. With its clear focus on meat, it offers not only an unrivalled spectrum of solutions but also a great concentration of experts.” www.meatpacking.info

IF FA

all top level

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he figures confirm that IFFA is top in terms of both exhibitor and visitor internationality. Nearly 60 percent of the companies taking part as exhibitors in 2013 were headquartered outside Germany. The top ten exhibitor nations – excluding Germany – were Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the USA, France, Denmark, Austria, the United Kingdom, China and Poland. Roughly one in two foreign visitors came from Europe. After Germany, the top ten visitor nations included the Russian Federation, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Austria, the USA, Switzerland, and China.

The global meat industry is a dynamic growth market. Populous countries of Asia, Latin America, East Europe, and Africa are characterized by rising incomes and, in many cases, a corresponding increase in meat consumption. Therefore, there is a mounting demand from these countries for modern and efficient technology for processing meat and meat products.

Besides quantity, quality is playing an increasingly important role as demands on product safety, quality and traceability rise. In western countries, the focus is on productivity optimization through energy efficiency, high output, straight-forward cleaning processes, greater automation, and sustainability.

In the butchers’ trade, the key to future success is adaptation to new consumer eating habits and trends, such as convenience foods, ‘walking’ food, and supplementary products for butchers’ shops.

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The show The traditional heart of Messe Frankfurt is its exhibition grounds in Frankfurt. Located in the center of Germany and at the heart of Europe, the exhibition grounds can be reached quickly and easily by air, rail, road, or public transport.

In a recent listing of the world’s 20 best cities, Frankfurt was in the top 10 grouping.

Opening Times 7 to 11 May: 0900 – 1800 12 May: 0900 – 1700

automation

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www.meatpacking.info

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he focus of the meat-processing industry is increasingly on intelligent linkage of the individual stages and the increased use of modern information and control technology. Thus, the range of products and services being offered by IFFA exhibitors for these subjects is correspondingly extensive.

An important driving force of innovation behind increasingly efficient processing lines is the growing demand for portioned and fixedweight packaging, and convenience products.

The fully automatic portioning and insertion of filets, steaks, sausage slices, and other meat products in the packaging calls for high-tech solutions. Most systems consist of laser and/or X-ray scanners, with integrated scales, feeding units for the slicer and the slicer itself installed at the top of the processing line, as well as downstream conveyor belts, which take the May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 35

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cut products to multi-track belt sorters with sophisticated shuttle systems or sorting and insertion robots that, for example, place the packages in the downstream tray sealer.

In smokehouses, manually hanging and transferring the smoke sticks with strings of sausages is frequently a bottle neck. Moreover, it is time, personnel and cost intensive. Robots can carry out this work more precisely and faster.

In addition to personnel savings, the advantages include, above all, a significant increase in terms of hygiene thanks to the abolition of manual operations and a reduction in wastage because there is no damage to the sausages, something that is often unavoidable in manual operation.

x-ray for inline fat analysis

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he still widespread extraction of lipid using the Soxhlet process is not only time and labor intensive but also, due to the sampling procedure, not particularly accurate [see March/April MPJ].

Today, technology is developing more and more in the direction of continuous inline checks and modern X-ray technology in accordance with the DEXA process. Thus, x-ray technology offers users continuous, 100 percent product control 36 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

including data documentation for traceability.

These examples represent only a fraction of the possibilities opened up by modern automation for meat and sausage processing.

Visitors to IFFA 2016 will have the chance to find out in-depth about the state-of-the-art and future developments in this field.

packaging technology

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rade visitors at IFFA will have the opportunity to find out everything there is to know about what modern technology can bring to the packaging of meat and sausage products, poultry and fish. When packaging solutions are tailored perfectly to specific products they ensure greater food safety, quality, hygiene and ease of handling for these products along the whole value adding chain right up to the final consumer.

Nowadays this market is dominated by film, skin and/or vacuum packaging. While giving food the required protection, they also offer excellent properties for presentation. Products are now packaged using fully automatic deep draw, and/or thermoforming, tray-sealing, and vacuum chamber machines. www.meatpacking.info

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ones to watch While some might still call Atlanta’s IPPE “the chicken show”, it’s anything but these days. And, for those who refer to IFFA as “the German show”, tell that to the nearly 1,000 exhibitors from around the world who will be hoping you’ll stop by their stand. To make the slightest headway in trying to see those on your ‘must see list’, MPJ has picked out just a small listing of some companies we see who are very interesting.

Complete processing lines SF Engineering specializes in delivering complete processing and packaging lines to the global meat industry. At IFFA, in collaboration with their partners’ Eagle and Marelec, SF are focusing on specific key innovations that provide greater efficiency, yield and product safety.

On Eagle’s stand visitors will experience fully integrated recipe management and trimming systems with advanced fat analysis technology. Discovering how product inspection can help meat processors to operate at the very highest levels of productivity, all whilst remaining competitive and in line with retailers’ high specifications.

On Marelec’s stand visitors will experience the incredible speed and accuracy of the Portio. This Portioning machine scans product and intelligently decides the best possible cutting pattern to minimize by-products.

Marelec: Stand B11/Hall 9 level 1 Eagle: Stand A88/Hall 9 level 1

Chilled meat handling system FoodCap's chilled meat material handling systems are already operational in New Zealand and China for beef, pork, lamb and chicken, and will have its global launch at IFFA. The FoodCap Primal Handling is a reusable bulk chilled meat system for buffering, storage, ageing, internal transfer, and external transport of primals, sub primals, and manufacturing trim.

At the heart of the system is the FoodCap (meat storage capsule) that can be handled manually or conveyed via automated storage and retrieval systems.

The capsule is effectively the vacuum pack and transportation device all in one. It eliminates the need for single use packaging saving a massive amount of what is otherwise waste.

Capsules store between 110-160kg of meat (either bone in or bone out), depending on the product cut or species.

FoodCap Primal Handling is modular, scalable, and flexible enabling it to be used stand-alone or integrated into existing operations alongside vacuum packing to create a hybrid boning room.

Read more about FoodCap’s system in this copy of MPJ packaging and end of line feature.

FoodCap: Stand A41/ Hall 11 level 1

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Full range for poultry processing Foodmate’s range of products include live bird handling, killing and defeathering, eviscerating, chilling and weighing, cut-up, and deboning systems. The company says that its systems are able to process a variety of bird weights and are easy to adjust to meet specific customer requirements. New items include Foodmate’s OPTI Dark Meat Deboning System which is a total dark meat deboning solution that produces high-yield, superior quality meat efficiently and cost effectively. It’s capable of deboning 100 skinless or skin-on anatomical whole legs, thighs, and drumsticks per minute. This system is so flexible that no additional parts or changes are required when switching between the various dark meat products. In addition, the new system now has an added automated J-Cutting Station which makes a pre-cut along the drumstick bone, knee joint, and thigh bone. Other systems include breast cap deboning, turkey thigh deboning, and cut-up lines.

Foodmate: Stand D68/ Hall 9 level 1

Ropanyl Belts for meat and poultry Ammeraal Beltech has been setting the process and conveyor belting standards for many years with market specific hygiene features. Continued research and development has lead to the design and production of a wide range of food safe belting solutions, in particular for meat and poultry.

One such solution are Ammeraal’s Ropanyl Belts. High quality and robust, Ammeraal’s Ropanyl Belts are made of polyurethane and have oil and fat resistant top covers. Ropanyl Belts will assist you in HACCP programs and their signature Ammeraal blue color (non-food color) reduces the risk of contamination. They are also resistant to cleaning agents for prolonged belt life.

Typical applications are meat processing, deboning and cutting lines, check weighing, and packaging lines. All in all, Ropanyl Belts are a well considered, durable and hygienic solution for processes in the meat and poultry industry.

Ammeraal Beltech will be featuring its Ropanyl and other quality belting solutions from its One-Stop Belt Shop concept at IFFA.

New solutions at GEA

Ammeraal Beltech: Stand E68/ Hall 9 level 1

For processing or packaging meat: GEA offers a solution for virtually every step of meat processing. This year as well, the company will present numerous products at the leading international trade fair for meat processing.

In addition to a selection of the most important systems and extensively redesigned models, five product innovations will be presented: a grinder, a mixer, a labeler, an entry-level model of the PowerPak thermoformer, and an end-of-line automation system.

Despite the great variety of application areas, key factors are common to all GEA plant systems and products: they have been developed with a focus on maximum efficiency and cost effectiveness, they assure smooth production processes, and they consequently contribute to a maximum of product quality.

GEA: Stand DO6/ Hall 8 level 0

www.meatpacking.info

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New series of vacuum fillers Well-known Handtmann has five new vacuum fillers in the VF 800 range. State-of-art and future-proof technology coupled with quality down to the very last detail are the main features of the new VF 800 vacuum fillers for the premium segment of vacuum filling technology. A new hygienic design facilitates top hygiene conditions together with highly-refined, practical advantages in terms of handling and ergonomics. VF800 models for mediumscale and industrial producers will be exhibited at the Handtmann trade fair stand as part of a new vacuum filler series. The company says the perfect complement to the VF 800 vacuum fillers is the new GD 451 inline grinding system. To discuss the VF 800 and all the other Handtmann vacuum fillers, please visit the company at their stand.

Handtmann: Stand D96/ Hall 8 level 0

Processing 37 miles deep Californian chicken giant Foster Farms relies on a high-pressure pasteurization (HPP) process for its All Natural Sliced Turkey, which eliminates the need for preservatives. This innovative product was achieved with Hiperbaric’s technology which was used to develop and produce these products. High Pressure Processing is a cold pasteurization technique which consists of subjecting food, previously sealed in flexible and water-resistant packaging, to a high level of hydrostatic pressure (pressure transmitted by water) up to 600 MPa/87,000 psi for a few seconds to a few minutes. It is the same effect as subjecting the food to an ocean depth of 37 miles deep – if an ocean this deep existed. HPP is a natural, environmentally friendly process that respects the ingredient and helps maintain the fresh food characteristics like flavor and nutrients. It is a real alternative to traditional thermal and chemical treatments. Hiperbaric is the global leading supplier of HPP equipment for the food industry. It started in the year 1999 and has set more than 160 installations in the World, contributing to its customers’ success through innovative solutions with the Hiperbaric equipment.

Splits 650 hogs per hour

Hiperbaric: Stand C31/ Hall 9 level 0

The Jarvis Model JCK-1 electric automatic hog splitter is capable of 650 head per hour, according to the company. Operating at 90 psi (6.2 bar), the JCK-1 will allow your line to run faster, provides uniform feather bone division – regardless of size or weight – and does a clean split with a minimum of sawdust. This allows for easier spinal cord removal and more bones for meat recovery systems. Jarvis specializes in kill floor and boning room equipment, including bandsaws, stunning equipment, carcass opening and splitting saws, hock cutters, and dehiding tools. In addition it has a poultry (see photo), beef, and sheep line as well. Currently Jarvis is expanding its operations in eastern Europe, Russia, China, India, and Southeast Asia.

Jarvis: Stand A06/ Hall 9 level 0

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Leading global provider Dutch company Marel is the leading global provider of advanced processing systems and services to the poultry and meat industries. Its product range spans the entire production process, from reception of raw materials all the way through packaging and labelling of the final product. Marel has full line offering through out the process from primary, secondary, and further processing. Marel’s Meat Industry Center brings together decades of experience and expertise accumulated across five continents with the goal of supplying top-of-the-line integrated systems and services to the red meat industry. The company focuses in particular on the four key processes of deboning and trimming, case read, food service, and bacon pressing. For the latest from Marel, please visit them at their stand.

Vemag Stuffer – industry leader

Marel: Stand K90/ Hall 8 level 0

For 50 years, Reiser has been a leading supplier of processing and packaging equipment solutions for the sausage, meat, and poultry industries. During that time, the company has gained recognition for its high-quality equipment, innovative engineering, and outstanding service and support. At the heart of the sausagemaking process lies the Vemag Stuffer. The Vemag provides the highest levels of production and portioning accuracy while producing a superior looking sausage. Its modular construction allows the Vemag to be configured for virtually any processor and can be reconfigured as the application or requirements change.

A variety of Vemag attachments – grinders, linkers, link cutters, hangers and more – will maximize your efficiency, optimize your productivity and help you produce a higher quality sausage.

“When you're ready to package your sausage, our full line of Repak form/fill/seal packaging machines, Ross tray sealers, Fabbri stretch wrappers and Supervac vacuum chamber machines will help keep your product fresh and looking its best. Reiser packaging equipment offers you the highest levels of efficiency, flexibility, speed, and reliability.”

Reiser: Stands B04, B06/ Hall 8 level 0

Real six-figure savings Flexible packaging equipment specialist ILAPAK is using IFFA as the launch pad for its latest technological breakthrough – the world’s first fully integrated rotary vacuum packer for the protein industry.

Following trials, the first RotaVac system will be on the show floor at IFFA 2016, demonstrating a new seamlessly integrated workflow for packing red meat and cheese in rollstock-produced vacuum bags. ILAPAK’s system can reduce labor by 60% versus a pre-made bag solution, as total integration dramatically reduces the need for any manual intervention overall line efficiency. “While a rotary packing line using pre-made shrink bags will typically be manned by eight operators, with our RotaVac system, the number of operators can potentially be cut to three. This has a massive impact on the

www.meatpacking.info

bottom line – six figure savings in real terms in most cases,” says Conrad Graham, ILAPAK’s meat industry manager. ILAPAK will also be demonstrating its capabilities in frozen meat with an IQF burger packaging solution comprising an ultra-hygienic Vegatronic series vertical bagger fed by a dedicated multi-head weigher.

ILAPAK: Stand B21/Hall 11 level 0

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Full-line solutions MPS meat processing systems is the global market leader in the supply of advanced red meat slaughtering systems, CO2 stunners, blood collection plants, carcass splitters, cutting and deboning systems, food logistic systems, industrial waste water treatment systems, and provides a 24/7 customer support.

MPS Butina recently installed and started-up successfully at the Maple Leaf pork plant in Manitoba, Canada, a set of Butina Backloader CO² stunners for stunning of groups of up to seven hogs per cycle. This was done in accordance to US and AMI animal welfare standards which requires a 6.6 sq. ft. spacing per hog inside the gondolas. According to the study and investigation by 3rd parties on behalf of Maple Leaf Foods corporate on the group stunning of Canadian hogs it was decided that MPS Butina will be their preferred supplier for the new stunning system inside their flagship plant in Brandon, Manitoba. See more of what MPS can do for you at their stand.

Accurate fat analysis

MPS: Stand B81/ Hall 9 level 0

NDC Technologies, headquartered in Irwindale, California, designs, develops, and produces a wide range of process measurement and control instrumentation for the meat industry, delivering both on-line and at-process analyzers for the measurement of key constituents such as moisture, fat, oil and protein.

Meat processors need reliable meat fat content analysis for their blended batches of hamburger and supermarket ground meat portions, to ensure they meet the specified value. There is a general need to measure fat during the blending process in order to make adjustments to the batch average. In addition to fat analysis, protein and moisture content are critical quality parameters. Accurate fat measurement is required to reduce lean give-away and to speed up batch release, as well as to reduce the frequency of external product testing. The InfraLab e-Series At-Line Meat Analyzer provides accurate measurements of fat, moisture and protein, and also collagen, in grab samples of meat taken from the process for quality assurance purposes.

“In addition, we work with our OEM partners who deliver NDC on-line fat measurements as part of a complete batch blending control system.”

NDC: Stand A05/ Hall 9 level 1

Vacuum and gas extraction You need vacuum? For more than 165 years Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum has delivered pumps, systems, standardized and tailor-made vacuum solutions, accessories and services for numerous industries – worldwide. As a pioneer of vacuum technology, Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum offers a wide range of vacuum components, standardized and fully customized vacuum

44 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

solutions, complemented by vacuum technology accessories and instrumentation. The company's core capabilities center on the development of application - and customer - specific systems for the creation of vacuums and extraction of processing gases.

Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum: Stand C41/ Hall 11 level 0

www.meatpacking.info

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Optical product control checkweighers

Film protection for meat Maria Soell High Technology Films will be presenting at IFFA 2016 a new type of shrink film for thermoforming machines, EichelsdorferShrinkShape, that combines deep-draw technology and shrink film. MS claims that the film is ideal in view of materials savings, performance, and sustainability within the packaging process. Its top web and bottom web provide extreme high seal strength and a skin-tight wrap around the food to be protected: meat, cold cuts, and poultry. The food is wrapped by machine, meeting maximum hygiene requirements and ensuring a considerably extended shelf life. EichelsdorferShrinkShape promotes your sales thanks to its high transparency and minimum seal contamination and affords a clear view of your appetising products. The film can be printed in up to eight colors.

The weighing and inspection specialist OCS Checkweighers introduces a world’s first at this year's IFFA exhibit: a combination of X-ray detector with optical product controls. Model SC-V combines the proven X-ray technology from OCS with additional optical control systems in one space saving unit. This enables a scanner to record barcodes, nutritional values, or expiration dates from multiple directions. Both inspection units are easily and conveniently controlled via one single HMI. The successful integration of both quality control aspects in one represents the latest pioneering contribution by OCS Checkweighers in compact design. In 2011, the company introduced the SC-W product series – the world's first space-saving combination of x-ray and precision weighing technologies in one, reliable, doubletrack, high-tech machine with a modular, hygienic design. OCS Checkweighers proudly presents a wide range of x-ray scanners EichelsdorferShrink Shape and dynamic checkweighers for nearly every industrial application at their exhibit stand at IFFA 2016.

OCS Checkweighers: Stand B51/ Hall 11 level 0

Maria Soell High Technology Films: Stand J14/ Hall 4 level 1

EichelsdorferShrinkMeat

New thermoform development GPS Reisacher will be sharing a booth with its subsidiary HAJEK Maschinenbau for the first time at IFFA 2016 and the company will be presenting end-to-end solutions along its entire valueadded chain. The HAJEK VSM 30 thermoform packaging machine is a new development. The outstanding features of the VSM 30 are its built-in hygiene, user-friendliness and ease of maintenance.

The modular design of the machine is an advantage in that the VSM 30 can be supplied for use with soft, semi-rigid and skin film up to a maximum width of 560 mm and a cut-off length of up to 600 mm. The unique safety system and sensor technology open up new possibilities in terms of operation and servicing. The innovative software with OPC UA interface and PackML protocol enables standardised line integration and connection to all established ERP systems. Diagnostics and remote maintenance are possible via VPN protocol. The VSM 30 model is "Industry 4.0"-ready.

Having collaborated with PULSOTRONIC-Anlagentechnik in the south of Germany in an exclusive business arrangement, GPS

www.meatpacking.info

EichelsdorferShrinkBone

Reisacher will be presenting a gantry robot from the PV5 range at the IFFA exhibition in which the packages from a thermoform packaging machine are transferred individually to downstream assemblies. The PV5 can process up to 200 products per minute, and its other performance features include an empty package detection and ejection system and an automatic mechanism for optimising the distance between the individual products.

Reisacher: Stand A65/ Hall 11 level 1

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Large network for microwave Sairem is a worldwide supplier of microwave machines and radiofrequency machines for food industry. We provide our customers with different applications such as tempering, thawing, heating, cooking, drying, and pasteurization. Around 80 percent of the French company’s turnover is made on the export market and it has a very large commercial network with more than 40 sales partners and agents representing it. “Our standard product range of microwave and radio frequency equipment can be used for tempering frozen food products – meat, poultry, chicken – is made of batch machines with an hourly capacity between 125 and 1200 kg/h for tempering between-20°C and -4°C/-2°C. In addition, we have continuous flow tunnels with an hourly capacity between 1,000 and 10,000 kg/h for tempering between -20°C and -4°C/2°C,” says the company.

Sairem: Stand F76/ Hall 9 level 0

Analyzes fat both fresh and frozen TORMA Sorting Food will be showcasing its popular QVision 500 fat analyzer, as well as highlighting its newest ground-breaking solutions for the meat industry. The QVision can analyze both fresh and frozen meat and measures fat, moisture, protein and collagen simultaneously, and in real-time, delivering highly accurate and consistent results. The hygienic and robust analyzer penetrates up to 20mm deep into the meat and measures across the full 500mm width of its conveyor belt. The company says that the QVision’s interactance spectroscopy technology is cuttingedge and sets the standard for in-line meat analysis. The system is now widely accepted in the industry, with increasing use for new applications. With its ability to analyze up to 30 tons per hour, it serves high volume meat processors perfectly. It is also a perfect choice for small and medium batch size processors, due to the accuracy of the QVision, which allows precise recipe formulation.

Visitors to TORMA’s booth will be able to see the machine in action and talk directly to the TOMRA team about the QVisions fast ROI. TOMRA Sorting Food: Stand C78/ Hall 9 level 1

Inks for casings When competing on supermarket shelves, the appearance of a product is increasingly important and high quality print is one of the ways of attracting the eye of a consumer, says Resino Trykfarver. Print quality is forever improving through improved printing equipment as well as innovation in ink technology; Resino has become the world’s leading supplier of Flexographic and gravure inks to the meat casing industry. Current products include: two component solvent/water-based inks as well as UV curing inks with very low odor and very low migration risk.

"At IFFA we will be displaying our latest development; Remonaq 165 series, a water-based one component ink series for polyamide casings." According to Resino, one component inks are easier to use and dramatically reduce ink waste. In addition, water-based inks eliminate the need for explosion and fire protection for equipment and buildings, as well as eliminate VOC restrictions.

Although Resino is focused on ink s for meat casings, it also provides solutions for most other food packaging printing.

Resino Trykfarver: Stand E21/ Hall 4 level 1

46 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

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pac k a g i n g

get packaging right And bring in sales

Our parents and teachers pounded into our young minds that looks aren’t everything; that what really matters is invisible to the eye; that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Our parents and teachers were obviously not trying to market a product. MPJ looks into why you better believe that packaging matters

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t’s all perception. Have two bottles with the same identical wine in each, but have one bottle stopped with a cork and the other with a screw cap.

It’s easy to guess which one people will say tastes better after sampling both.

In a recent European test, apple juice, breakfast biscuits, and chocolates were labeled either ethically produced or not.

Same exact food, but most thought the food labeled ethically produced tasted better. Swedish researchers did a similar test with similar results using ‘organic’ coffee.

Research in 2013 showed that most people don't know what "organic" really means, but that doesn't stop them from demanding it.

Not only do people prefer food labelled with ethically loaded terms like "organic," "fair trade," and "locally produced," they actually report that it tastes better — even if the label is totally fake.

How can packaging alone get us salivating?

A Japanese study in 2009 found that images on food packaging and labels may affect the way consumers perceive and remember flavors.

According to the team of researchers led by 48 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

Masako Okamoto, not only does imagery on food labels modulate flavor memory, but any perceived similarity between the images and the flavors plays a vital role in flavor memory.

The team, writing in Oxford Journals in 2008, found that the information the brain remembers about food flavor can be as important as the perceived flavor itself. “For example, when people select and buy foods, they usually cannot taste them, but must rely on recalling memories of the flavor,” said Okamoto.

The researchers said that since many commercial food and drink products are sold in packages, that consumers will see in markets, “there is growing awareness of the importance of understanding how labels influence memory.”

To test this hypothesis, the researchers used 10 aqueous taste solutions consisting of two to three of the five basic tastes in different ratios and presented them to test subjects with one of these food names: “lemon,” “coffee jelly,” “caramel candy,” and “consommé soup.” Fortysix participants tasted samples presented with either food-name labels or random number labels. www.meatpacking.info

bemis

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“We found that participants who tasted samples with food-name labels rated tastes with significantly higher liking and familiarity scores than those presented with random numbers, especially when the names and tastes were perceived as being congruent,” said Okamoto.

“As demonstrated, food identity information presented as food-name labels influences the liking, familiarity, and, in some cases, perceived intensity of pure basic tastes.”

In other words, Oscar Mayer’s ‘Selects Premium Beef Franks’ might be rated number one in food tests, but we still buy similarly priced Nathan’s Beef Franks – rated lower in taste – because their package colors reminds us of that special trip to New York City when we bought a Nathan’s from a hot dog vendor in Central Park.

So we know packaging is important; we know that if we don’t get it right no matter how great our product is in the inside, it’s not going to sell. But we also know that in the average large supermarket there are between 40,000 to 50,000 items, with the average shopper spending 40 minutes doing a ‘big shop’ once a week; as a www.meatpacking.info

Above: When people select and buy foods, they usually cannot taste them, but must rely on recalling memories of the flavor

food producer we have only seconds to capture their eyes.

It sounds like an impossible mission.

MPJ approached worldwide packaging expert Bemis for advice; a company that states it can “uncover bold new ways to elevate your brand, outsmart the competition, and spark new ideas”. With 17,500 employees working in 60 facilities located in 11 countries, it has a proven track record of creating exceptional packaging for food, consumer products, healthcare, and industrial applications.

MPJ: As much as all of us would want to believe that the cover doesn’t sell the book, it seems like this is the case with food items. Is this correct?

Bemis director of marketing Markku Rommi: When it comes to food and packaging, I guess the cover does sell the book approximately 73% of the time. Our research shows that 73% of purchase decisions are made at the point-ofsale and 92% of consumers think that freshness retention is an important attribute in food May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 49

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packaging.

While with some items such as snack foods, cereals, or even Absolute Vodka with it’s oneoff bottles, it would seem relatively easy to build excitement in the packaging. How do you build excitement with something as straight forward as chilled poultry?

Rommi: When it comes to what you call “straight forward” foods, the excitement lies in delivering on consumer needs such as quality and freshness. Take a look at freshly sliced meats as a category. Few years ago, consumers demanded ‘recloseability’ of packs because ease of access, handle, use and dispose was and is still seen as an important packaging attribute.

That’s when we brought forward our Be-Pack Packaging Concept that helps retain superior flavor, freshness, and quality in convenient formats to capture the attention of savvy meat and dairy consumers today.

In any major supermarket in the US or Europe, processed meats take up a major portion of the chiller cabinet. How do you make your product stand out?

VP of marketing & innovation Fabienne Vanhorenbeke: There are a number of print technologies that help create impact on shelf.

In the US and Europe, one in particular is tactile ink. There is a trend in the States and Europe where consumers want authentic products, less processed. This paper-like print that also has a tactile feel supports the messaging on the package “no preservatives”, “no nitrates”. It looks “Old World.” This matte package makes it much more visible on shelf. Same thing with this bacon package. This is a matte print bacon package that is meant to look like butcher paper.

Appeals to that demographic and that is how Oscar Mayer is making this package stand out on shelf.

In the States, organic or ‘natural’ processed meats tend to come in packages that are either dark green or other ‘earthy’ shades. Is this something consumers now grab automatically assuming it’s organic?

Rommi: I think consumers do assume that the pack design including color defines whether the contents are organic or not. I wish I had more insight. But what we are learning from our customers, particularly retailers, is that consumers here in Europe have demanded back to tradition looking packs. As packaging film supplier, it is our task to make that happen and ensure that it also works in the industrial 50 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

context. Take Paper-Like™ Paper Alternative for example, consumers demanded traditional feel and production managers appreciated the feature’s capacity to work on their packaging lines.

Do different demographics look at packaging differently?

Sales & marketing analyst Sebastien Litaud: Different demographics react differently to packaging formats, designs, etc. Take young professionals who are moms, for example, who take part in big family gatherings and who want to enjoy the socializing more than doing the cooking. For them, ready meal components are very interesting. With OvenRite we are making that possible. Product made ready with grandma’s recipe goes with an OvenRite film ready to be prepared in a conventional oven.

Do different demographics look at packaging differently?

Vanhorenbeke: It is definitely not one-sizefits-all. In the U.S. and Europe, you are starting to see an explosion of snacking products that include meats. This is being driven by Millennials and busy, on-the-go lifestyles of people today.

They snack more throughout the day versus sitting down for big meals (you can use any of the data in our snacking ebook). There are many new products on the market to cater to this need.

Beef jerky is experiencing a renaissance in the USA, with high-end jerky replacing what was normally for sell at service station check-out counters. I’m a customer who has developed a new jerky which isn’t cheap to produce. I have, however, no idea on how it should be packaged.

Take me through the steps that you would in helping me market my jerky.

Vanhorenbeke: Understanding your consumer and what is important to them.

Understanding your focus as a customer. Are you looking at a line extension of new flavors?

Is this a completely new product? What are the consumer usage occasions? Which retail channels are you looking at? What is the product? What price point do you need to get to? What potential barrier requirements are needed for the shelf life you are looking to get to?

Collaborate with you to define potential packaging formats based on the answers to the first two questions. We would create mock-ups of the packaging options, so that you can put them in front of your consumers for testing. www.meatpacking.info

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Potentially, if needed, we also bring into the conversation other members of the supply chain like machinery companies if new equipment is required, so that we are all working together at the same time to determine needs and solving problems early in the process.

Once the format has been determined, we work to do all the film testing to ensure the barrier of the film is appropriate to the product, testing, scale-up, etc.

By engaging the film supplier early and collaborating from the beginning, we can help our customers go from concept to commercialization quicker.

Can you explain your Ovenrite packaging?

OvenRite business development manager Pete Roberts: OvenRite dual-ovenable films make convenience cooking in the microwave and conventional oven a reality. A product (fish/ poultry/meat; seasoned/marinated/unprocessed) goes with OvenRite film, allowing the consumer to cook-in-the-bag. No mess, no prep. The consumer gets to enjoy a flavorful meal.

You mention that Ovenrite can drive growth for a business, all so?

Roberts: OvenRite often kick-starts customers’ new product development projects, inspiring teams to grow and expand product portfolios with added-value products. Convenience is a key driver for consumer purchase, www.meatpacking.info

Above: Bemis VP of marketing & innovation Fabienne Vanhorenbeke

where OvenRite delivers several convenience attributes. Today’s time poor consumers see the advantages of less preparation, reduced cooking, and clean up times as being an aid to their lifestyle.

Our customers tell us that this is the best way of cooking meat, improving the succulence, texture and flavor. The upscale in cooking quality can help the sales of the less tender meat cuts to reinvigorate the category. The fear of spoiling a meal through lack of knowledge of how to cook the meat can be a barrier to meat sales and OvenRite has given confidence to consumers to make that protein purchase and repeat purchases.

Looking at the Bemis crystal ball, what changes do you see in meat packaging in the near future?

Vanhorenbeke: Consumers want to see what they buy, even feel it. This has meant an increase in uptake of our SkinTite second skin films, which help customers provide a striking way of showing their product’s quality while delivering extended shelf life.

In the near future, we will also see customers (retailers and producers of meat) wanting longer shelf life, where there is less loss in the value chain. Consumers in this case will reap the benefits as they will see an increase in product availability. Convenience will continue to be important. Ease of access, handling, cooking, disposal will all gain importance.

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Meat storage capsule may be ‘game changer’ A new way of moving chilled meat in plants should save operators money, cut down on waste and packaging material, and be more hygienic

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new meat handling system, with commercial installations already in use in China and New Zealand, eliminates the need for primal chilled meat processors to use single use packaging.

The FoodCap primal handling system is a reusable, bulk chilled meat handling system for buffering, storage, ageing, and transport of meat and poultry between primal and case-ready processing lines.

At the heart of the system is the FoodCap, a meat storage capsule. According to the New Zealand-based company, the FoodCap is robust and seals completely to maintain a modified atmosphere where oxygen is excluded, preventing microbial growth and product deterioration.

FoodCap CEO, Julian Beavis describes the technology as “revolutionary” for primal chilled meat processors. “The capsule is essentially the vacuum pack and transportation device all in one, eliminating the need for single use packaging. They store between 110-160 kilograms of meat, either bone in or bone out, meaning greater efficiencies on the production line as well as in storage and handling.”

The FoodCap primal handling system is designed to integrate with automated storage and retrieval systems for efficient and accurate handling and inventory management, although it also has the flexibility to be used without automation if required.

It has been scientifically verified by independent research and development company, Carne Technologies.

Extensive meat science trials have been carried 52 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

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110-160kg of meat, bone in or bone out

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out on beef, pork, chicken, and lamb providing direct comparison between the FoodCap system and conventional vacuum packaging. The trials found that cross all species, the FoodCap system provided outstanding exclusion of oxygen, low microbial growth and extended storage times.

FoodCap’s technology was originally developed as a central processing supply chain for high velocity production and distribution of case-ready meat to supermarkets.

New Zealand grocery company Progressive Enterprises uses the technology in its centralised multi-species meat processing and packing plants in Auckland, which have to date produced over 400 million consumer packs of chilled meat. With the plant producing up to 120,000 consumer packs of meat per day, the FoodCap system has eliminated more than 100 million cartons and 110 million vacuum bags that would otherwise have been used in a traditional supply chain.

In 2015, FoodCap installed their technology for Chinese company Little Sheep Meat Industry Co, in their primal lamb processing operation in Bayannur, Inner Mongolia, as part of a project to convert the plant from a frozen to a fresh chilled operation. Zhang Gang, chairman and founder of Little Sheep explains, “For three years my www.meatpacking.info

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Eliminate oxygen to stop primal discolouration and retard microbial growth

Capsules transferred to further processing facility onsite or offsite

Forklift to manual storage Convey or transport to ASRS to ensure efficient and accurate inventory management • •

team scoured the world looking for innovations that would lead to a competitive advantage in the extremely dynamic Chinese marketplace.

We found such an innovation in the FoodCap Primal Handling technology from New Zealand, a country famed for its fresh chilled meat production and handling. FoodCap not only introduced their unique chilled material handling system; they introduced Little Sheep to a range of specialist companies and technologies which collectively delivered us a world class chilled lamb processing operation.”

Four years of research and development has seen the development of the new primal handling system, which is being launched at IFFA this year. This has included further refinement of the original technology, ensuring reliability of operation and ease of application.

“We know we now have a system that is proven to provide a range of benefits, from extending shelf life and improving food safety, to decreasing manual handling and production costs,” says Beavis. “We’re excited to be launching it at the world’s largest meat equipment event and look forward to discussing the technology with meat processors and potential distributors in Frankfurt.”

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Vacuum packaging for aging beef More and more commercial end users are using vacuum packaging to age their beef, allowing it to be sold for a premium rate. However, there is more to the process than you imagine – especially if you want to get it right. Bob Goldberg of PAC Machinery explains

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ging beef is a technique used by specialty meat purveyors, fine restaurants, and gourmet grocers to enhance meat flavor and improve tenderness. Dry aging is a process whereby primal cuts of beef are stored at refrigerated temperatures, but without protective packaging.

The meats are held in these conditions up to five weeks or more to encourage the natural enzymatic processes that result in improved tenderness and a rich and intense flavor. While many food professionals agree that meat must age to achieve optimum taste and tenderness, the way the meat is aged – wet, dry, or both – is a lively topic for discussion.

During the aging process, the connective tissue and the muscle fibers in the meat are

Below: Packaging Aids CV 540 double chamber vacuum sealer.

The two chambers allow one to be reloaded while the other is processing

softened, and made more palatable. Beef naturally contains cathepsin and calpaine, and the presence of these two enzymes enables the meat to mature and become tender naturally.

However, these enzymes need time to work – and they work best at room temperature.

Unfortunately, bacterial growth flourishes at room temperature as well. While 0°C (31 Deg F) is the optimum temperature for suspending bacterial growth, the low temperature slows the enzymatic action as well. This means dry aging beef unwrapped in a cold room can be a lengthy process. Add to the time involved, there are specific requirements regarding relative humidity, airflow, and hygienic conditions that must be maintained. Dry aging beef is popular, but wet aging in a vacuum bag is another effective way to augment taste and tenderness. What is the difference between aging meat uncovered or in a vacuum bag? Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

vacuum packaged meats

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efore the development of vacuum packaged beef, the only option was dry aging, but by the 1980s, well over 90% of commercial beef was vacuum packaged. In contrast to dry aged beef, the advantages of wet aged, vacuum packaging focused on reducing shrinkage and extending shelf life without sacrificing some of the taste

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characteristics present in dry aged beef. The clear economic advantages in vacuum packaging greatly influenced how steaks are handled and prepared in the foodservice and retail channels.

Wet aging beef enjoyed a great advance with the invention of the meat-ripening bag. Meat ripening bags are manufactured from a semipermeable material. This specialized material is water vapor permeable, but still offers a barrier against bacteria, mold, odors and other contamination that might be present in the environment. With the use of a ripening bag, meat can be aged outside a freezer at 2 to 4ÂşC (34 to 38 F), yet still gain protection from harmful pathogens. As the aerobic maturation is supported, the result is improved taste and tenderness, compared to conventional wet aging (anaerobic maturing).

Wet aging has other practical advantages as well. Wet aged meat is easily handled, stacked, and boxed while aging; it does not require highly controlled (humidity, air flow, etc.) cooler space. Vacuum packaging has enabled the meat industry to store boxed beef in refrigerated storage rooms and distribution facilities for an extended number of days. This provides the processor with increased flexibility to store and age the meat and enjoy a more consistent product. www.meatpacking.info

Above: A beautiful piece of dry aged beef

comBine dry and wet aging

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et aging can further enhance the effect of dry aging beef. This is a process whereby which the dry aged meat continues to age in a vacuum bag. In this process the meat, after suitable time in a dry aging environment, is vacuum packed and placed in a cold room or aging unit to mature. Important advantages of this method are the limited weight loss of the meat and a significant reduction in the risk of contamination.

Easy to operate vacuum chambers are available in various sizes that range from counter top models to large floor-standing units â&#x20AC;&#x201C; each designed to accommodate the quantity of product being processed. Special vacuum bags are required for this style of packaging.

When choosing how to age meat, it is not simply a question of dry or wet. Dry aging and vacuum packaging can go hand in hand. Dry aging enhances the flavor; wet aging tenderizes it further, controls the weight loss and reduces the risk of contamination. Meat purveyors and fine restaurants are encouraged to discover the method or combination of methods that produce the results they seek.

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Packing Automation boosts performance A Dutch processing plant fully automated it’s end of line packing system allowing it to get most orders out the same day, driving up sales, and boosting profits

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he underlying assumption is this: the more all components are linked in a network, the more efficient and cost-effective can goods be supplied to the customers. ProMessa BV, a Dutch manufacturer of prepacked meat products, has recognized the trend. In cooperation with CSBAutomation AG, they automated their in-house logistics and say they have tripled their turnover to 70 million euros (about $80 million).

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us to pick and deliver even small quantities in an efficient manner. Our customers, among them Coop, Spar, and Plus, can order any item even on short notice and in small quantities – be it traditional meat or sausage products, minced meat or ‘rundervinken’, a Dutch specialty.

Everyone who places their orders in time usually will receive the goods on the very same day,” explains managing director Harold Rouweler. A major competitive advantage in a country where the traditional service counter is becoming less important: most of the meat products sold in the Netherlands are pre-packed products from food retailers. www.meatpacking.info

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performance nearly doubled

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y now, nearly the entire materials flow at ProMessa has been automated – from packaging of the meat products at production exit, storage and picking up to loading onto the trucks. While in the past, goods and crates were moved manually, today state-of-the-art robotic technology, conveyor system components, sorters, and a software solution by CSB-System AG work together perfectly, says ProMessa.

Just like in other intralogistics systems, the software is the key also for ProMessa: the controlling system organizes and monitors two automatic crate storages, robot units, four automatic weigh labeling lines with connected sorters, an automatic dispatch warehouse as well as a conveyor system. Integrated production scheduling ensures precise tuning of workflows in terms of time and quantity. Any important details such as up-to-date order, production, and inventory data are captured and processed in real time. Such high degree of networking between business workflows and logistics components facilitates fast and error-free processes and enormous productivity: “We have nearly doubled our output – sometimes to more than 100,000 packages per day. At Christmas 2015, we even managed 150,000 packages,” says Rouweler. “We would never have achieved such growth rates without the new logistics system which was established in the existing buildings without any major staff increase.”

The automated flow of goods starts at a central point directly at production exit.

Controlled by the software, the single-item containers with attached barcodes are transferred to the logistical system and moved to one of www.meatpacking.info

the two warehouses. Small-quantity units are stored in a conventional single-position highbay storage with a capacity of 7,000 storage positions. Fast-moving products which are sold quickly with large quantities go into the fast-mover warehouse. This area gantry robot warehouse uses a storage technology that is relatively new to the food industry.

What is special about this type of storage is that containers are not placed in shelves, but stacked directly on the hygienic storage floor.

The area gantry achieves its high performance rates by moving up to seven containers simultaneously as needed. The ‘first-in, first-out’ principle is adhered to at all times as the portal robot always removes the crate that is at the bottom of the stack.

After a corresponding signal from the ERP software, the crates are moved one level up to the four weigh labeling lines with connected goods-to-man picking sorters. The software optimally combines order data, products and containers and supplies them to the picking lines for weigh labeling. The system considers and calculates quantities and volumes as well as May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 57

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the number of required containers, the necessary material flows, and the optimal conveyor tracks for loading the trucks in accordance with routes and subsidiaries.

At the CSB-Racks, the staff can easily see which order is currently being processed, which products and quantities belong to which order, and which label needs to be attached. In the sorter, they are finally ejected automatically to customer channels and distributed to the containers.

production and picking

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he entire intralogistics system is based on the principle of decoupling process steps. In the planning stage, the aim was to enable work in all core processes from production up to shipping independent of any upstream and downstream processes and to reach a permanently high level of productivity and flexibility. The highperformance dispatch warehouse is one of the key elements for success. It secures optimal picking of customer orders which are compiled as stacks of crates in the course of the day. The CSB-System generates individual sub-orders from the customer orders on hand, depending on the availability of the goods. Despite the product diversity, production can work with optimal lot sizes and independently of the 58 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

picking and dispatch processes. Picking of an item only starts after the required goods quantities have been stored in the two buffer storages. The four weigh labeling lines equipped with multiroll printers as well as the four connected sorters are thus capable of combining between 1,400 and 2,400 mixed containers per hour, depending on the order structure.

Digitizing and networking material and information flows brings many advantages, like living up to the growing importance of the time factor. Today, ProMessa can respond even quicker to reorders without having to build up large stocks. Orders can be entered in the ERP system all day. Usually, they are ready for shipping within 12 hours or still on the same day.

“In the past, we had a lot more buffer goods that we had to have on stock. Thanks to the speed of our logistical system, we now buffer only pre-packaged non-labeled goods for one day,” Rouweler says. Daily deliveries to customers can be realized even with very short order lead times. The delivery performance currently is over 99 percent.

Rouweler is satisfied. “This project has demonstrated the importance of choosing the right partners for the technological advancement of our production facilities. CSB-System and CSB-Automation are valuable partners for us because they always contribute with new ideas and develop innovative, practical solutions that enhance our competitiveness sustainably.” www.meatpacking.info

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revolution in fixed weight tray packing Ishida Europe’s new Robotgrader looks like something out of a science fiction movie.

Like a mechanical giant spider, metal arms shoot out, grab pieces of chicken, and places them in trays at speeds that are staggering

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shida Europe’s new RobotGrader combines weighing and pick-andplace technologies to grade products of varying weight and pack them to a fixed weight straight into the tray.

MPJ had the privilege to watch one in action last year before they went into commercial production. It’s an amazing machine and if it is as reliable as Ishida says it is, the RobotGrader could change the chicken processing line considerably, especially in areas where labor is either expensive or hard to find.

Ishida says the system reduces giveaways to less than one percent per pack and can correctly place and orientate the pieces, at speeds of up to 320 pieces per minute. By comparison, a manual operation can be extremely labour intensive with a single operator only able to pack 30 pieces/minute, with overfill that can be anywhere from five to 20 percent.

The RobotGrader works by weighing products on a belt weigher. This information is then fed into the system’s sorting algorithms that determine the robot’s selection of the pieces.

The robot can store the information of a large number of weighed pieces, optimizing the number of trays within the reach of each robot, and maximizing availability from which to create each complete packs. Ishida’s robot gripper has been specially designed to grasp each piece firmly – but gently – and to orientate it correctly in the trays. For example, it can place two chicken drumsticks in opposite directions.

Depending on the model, the RobotGrader can handle two, three, or four different tray types at the same time. In addition, the system can identify and sort pieces whose weight is unsuitable for tray packing, and direct these to bulk bins (which are integrated into the RobotGrader) as well as freezers, slicers, and marinating operations.

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overhead-mounted robots, and the elimination of manual work stations, provide a compact overall footprint and an impressive return on floor space. A hygienic construction, with all parts of open plastic or metal design, enables rapid and effective washdown. Easily-movable tray guides mean product changeovers are fast and simple. It can also integrate easily with existing factory ERP and control systems.

“With modern processing lines able to operate at extremely high speeds, the filling of two or more pieces into fixed weight packs has been one area that has until now resisted efficient automation,” explains Ulrich Nielsen, Ishida Europe’s Director for Business Solutions. “Using proven technology, the Robotgrader solves this problem to deliver near-continuous accurate process packing.”

The RobotGrader can be incorporated into Ishida fresh food packing lines alongside other Ishida equipment, including X-ray systems, tray sealers, seal testers, and checkweighers to provide bespoke solutions, tailored to individual customer requirements. www.meatpacking.info

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A blueprint for food safety in China Long plagued by food safety scandals at home, China now faces greater international pressure to effectively and transparently address concerns over the quality of food exports. Foreign safety standards pose an important challenge to Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exports of horticultural, meat, poultry and aquatic products. Aidan Connolly, Alltech Chief Innovation Officer, (et al) presents

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it is a global challenge. A major challenge is developing a robust food safety system in the context of limited resources and rising threats. The key is to create a system based on risk â&#x20AC;&#x201C; through science-based risk analysis, risk monitoring, risk management and risk communication, an area where China has made significant headway since the 2008 melamine incident.

In September 2014, Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s State Council announced that since risk-based surveillance and standard setting system were initiated in 2010, Chinese authorities have collected 5.4 million food safety test results covering almost 600 types of food under 30 categories to help assess food safety risk and develop standards. As the Chinese government continues to build a riskbased food safety system, what else can be done to assist this effort and help overcome persistent challenges? This report looks at both public and private sector initiatives globally, highlighting relevant success factors and identifying elements that may be applicable to the continuing development of a strong food safety system in China and elsewhere as well.

While the negative impacts of Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s food safety problems are difficult to quantify, a 2011 study estimated that more than 94 million Chinese experience bacterial foodborne illness, leading to about 8,500 deaths annually (by way of

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s societies evolve from food shortages to food sufficiency so expectations of food suppliers evolve to food affordability, safety, and eventually sustainability.

In the case of the leading food producers in the United States, European Union and more recently in China, these expectations have resulted in the development of highly regulated risk-based systems designed to support production of safe and affordable food. Despite these efforts, serious food safety incidents continue to occur as unfortunate reminders of the need for continued diligence in the effort to provide safer food.

Food safety is not a uniquely Chinese issue;

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comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that in the US, there are 76 million cases of food borne illness, (including bacterial, viral, and microbial sources of infection) with 5,000 deaths annually. In 2013, research found Chinese residents are more concerned about food safety than healthcare, unemployment, and crime.

food safety in china now

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apid economic growth, significant increases in agricultural productivity, greater industrialization of food processing, and changing patterns of consumption over the last 35 years have transformed the production, distribution, and consumption of food in China. With food scarcity no longer a pressing issue in China, and given that people now have access to a wider range of food products, food safety has become the paramount concern.

Where historically food in China was mostly produced and consumed in the same locality with little pre-market processing, modern China’s intensification of agricultural production, rapid expansion of certain product sectors, longer supply chains, and rising consumption of more processed food have exposed weaknesses in the food safety mechanisms and created new demands on China’s food safety authorities.

Intense market pressures and inadequate enforcement make food safety a challenging governance issue.

Over the last several years, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of policy initiatives to address food safety problems, both as a new policy domain and under the mandate of existing policy streams including agriculture, environmental protection, and health. Some of these policies involve new standards relating to production environments and processes, as well as permissible levels of potentially harmful substances in food. Others involve the introduction of mechanisms for improving traceability and accountability through vertical linkage along the food supply chain or the scaling up of production and processing operations.

industry structure

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hina’s regulatory approaches are complicated by the sheer size of the food sector: more than 450,000 food production and processing companies are active in China, 350,000 of which are small enterprises with fewer than 64 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

10 employees. China’s highly fragmented food supply chain composed of millions of small farmers, traders, and retailers, many of which operate unsupervised, poses a great challenge to the implementation of a comprehensive and effective domestic food safety system.

It is difficult to standardize and monitor production practices in a sector composed of 200 million farm households who typically have one to two acres of land divided into four to six non-contiguous plots. Farmers have only usage rights to their land, so they lack ownership incentives to make costly investments Strategies of vertical integration and horizontal coordination of food production and supply chains that are being introduced as part of efforts to modernize China’s agricultural structures have not yet found very positive impacts in terms of food safety.

China has a comparatively limited governance toolbox for dealing with food safety compared to more developed economies; research points to the lack of a strong legal system, insurance companies, industry associations, and consumer watchdogs to support and supplement government efforts to ensure the safe production and processing of food. To involve the stakeholder, each point of the food supply chain can help to create the pull effect for governance toolbox.

identifying problems

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dentifying the vulnerable points in the food chain is a key element in developing an appropriate and effective food safety system.

The integrated nature of the food chain means that weaknesses in one area of the chain can affect food safety throughout the entire food chain. The food production process provides many opportunities for contamination at various stages. During primary production, improper use of agrochemicals, fertilisers, and pesticides in the field, and antibiotics and antiparasitic agents in animal agriculture, might lead to the presence of unsafe compounds in food products.

Meanwhile, suboptimal storage and transportation might lead to contamination by harmful microorganisms and associated toxins.

Use of unlawful additives in food processing can further contaminate food products. Since water is essential to food production, preparation, and processing, a major source of food borne disease in China stems from the shortage of clean water and poor sanitation.

Meanwhile, chemical pollution is a major threat to both agricultural land and freshwater www.meatpacking.info

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Authors

supplies. The rapid development of industrial facilities in rural areas, often immediately adjacent to agricultural land, is an escalating food safety problem because fields are being contaminated by industrial wastes such as heavy metals.

In the context of agricultural production itself, overuse and misuse of certain agrochemicals pose another set of major concerns for public health and food safety in China. Fertiliser overuse, for instance, is widely acknowledged in China and is associated with algal blooms in lakes and reservoirs that contaminate drinking water with toxic microcystins, leading to diarrhoea, liver cancers, and other outcomes.

Finally the addition of illegal additives is a prominent food safety problem with a particularly difficult recent history in China’s food sector. Incidents of illegal chemical additives in foodstuffs have been recurrent, leading to public health hazards, social distrust of the food industry, and loss of public confidence in the regulatory system.

The potential impacts of food safety hazards in China are amplified by the globalization of food trade. Given China’s status as the world’s second largest single-country food exporter, a food safety incident in China not only impacts consumers and businesses at the product’s origin, but can affect a large number of consumers in export markets worldwide. The international dimension to the food chain has raised the profile of food safety in China, attracting the attention of regulators around the world.

The primary sources of food safety incidents in China can be classified into four main categories: environmental (industrial pollution of the air, soil or water), production (including residues of pesticides, veterinary medicines, contaminated feed and other chemicals), processing (led by illegal use of food additives and illegal raw materials), and post-production (including spoiling and other hazards through poor handling and storage, and false labelling). www.meatpacking.info

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This paper was originally published by the China Agricultural Economic Review. The full list of authors include: Aidan J Connolly (University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland) Project leader Leona Shaojing Luo (Alltech, Meath, Ireland) Michael Woolsey (Alltech, Beijing, China) Mark Lyons (Alltech, Beijing, China) Kate Phillips-Connolly (Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland) The complete report can be viewed at www.meatpacking.info

Above: Aidan Connolly, Alltech Chief Innovation Officer and report team leader

The contributing factors of food safety incidents also include poor management and the structure of the food chain, subjective and intentional criminal acts taken by the behavioural agents of food supply chain for personal gain, flaws in the food safety supervision system, under-capitalized food production and processing enterprises, and poor awareness and low levels of expertise in ensuring safe food all play their part.

While China has made significant progress in its food safety regulatory regime, the overall food safety system, combining both public sector and private sector aspects, is hindered by China’s food industry structure and enforcement at the local level, specifically in the following aspects: Supply chain complexity. China’s decentralised and fragmented food industry structure presents a major challenge to ensuring food safety from farm to fork. Almost 80% of China’s 500,000 food establishments are cottage enterprises with fewer than 10 employees. As a result, it is often difficult to locate (even with a basic traceability program) responsible parties when food safety incidents occur. The complexity of the food supply chain and the lack of a tracking system, together with a May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 65

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flat industry structure, can make it extremely difficult to pinpoint the source of contamination or to respond to food safety incidents in an efficient manner. Further, threats of bankrupting judgments from lawsuits that help motivate an industry to monitor or regulate their own supply chain, as with the food industry in Europe or the United States, are absent.

Poor farm returns. A combination of low technical capabilities, rising costs of feed, fuel, labour and other inputs, and a market structure that favours food manufacturers over farmers means that small and medium-sized producers, who account for the vast majority of Chinese agricultural output, have chronically low returns. Persistent poor farm returns increase the temptation to engage in illegal practices such as overuse of agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines to increase profitability.

Monitoring and enforcement. Some critics argue that a lack of laws and regulations in China are the main reason for food safety problems. However, China has more than 3,000 food laws, regulations, and standards.

Nonetheless it appears that the gap between written and enforced laws has been widening.

Regardless of the number of rules, their effectiveness depends on robust monitoring and enforcement at the local level.

five elements for success

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he global food chain is one of the drivers of food safety policies, yet the core of agriculture remains in many ways intensely local. While the application of international experiences in solving food safety problems need to be tailored to Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specific circumstances, guidelines for policy development can be drawn from the collective experience.

An effective food safety system protects public health by ensuring that food meets the necessary safety standards. It begins with a clear, unified mission that focuses and integrates the varied needs and responsibilities of all stakeholders, provides the stakeholders with a basis for achieving the goals of the system, and is widely accepted.

Combining these elements with best practices from systems created by food safety practitioners internationally suggests a five point blueprint for food safety in China and other countries, allowing for the development of a robust food safety system. It should be noted that even since the authors began developing this model, China has already adopted a number of the recommendations covered by this blueprint and is actively considering others. The first step is to establish a systemic, structured approach; www.meatpacking.info

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a national food safety policy and plan is an essential part of an effective food safety system.

Whether it is a framework for coordinating the efforts of different agencies and actors involved in the food chain, or a single agency, a clear line of sight through production, regulation and enforcement is essential. Equally, however, it is clear that the production side must be separate from the enforcement side. In the EU, for example, the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) is part of the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety, while food production policy and development initiatives come under the purview of the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development.

A strong food safety policy will be clear about the objective and priorities, have clear roles for all of the stakeholders, define clear strategies for implementation and include effective performance assessment mechanisms.

The second step is to implement science based good management practices to ensure that food safety regulations, inspection and monitoring activities are prudent, effective and efficient, which is including data collection and analysis, and risk controls. It is necessary along the entire supply chain. In some cases, safe production will need to be supported by HACCP-based systems that identify potential risks and create a system of controls, with builtin monitoring to confirm the system is working as intended.

A structured risk assessment system based on a common agreement of food safety principles improves both the quality of the assessment and the transfer of knowledge at the local level.

However, adoption of effective quantitative risk assessment is difficult to ensure without an integrated food safety system, especially if different agencies have differing missions.

The third step is to involve the stakeholder.

An effective food safety system is an interdependent system that includes each point of the food supply chain, as well as researchers, and supporting players. The system is dynamic and aligned to the unified mission of improving food safety, to protect public health. Supportive, involved and informed participants are critical to the integration and dissemination of research, education, and information. Thus, in addition to the direct participants from both the human and animal food chains, universities and college, special interest organisations, consumers and the news media should be involved. This creates the pull effect for standards and quality marks.

The fourth step is to develop education and training. Food safety officials throughout the supply chain often have a poor understanding of food safety practices and standards that cover their products. Training and follow-up is May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 67

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an essential pre-condition to foster consistent compliance with food safety standards and regulations. Also, monitoring and enforcement (below) require strong management skills.

The last step is to enhance the monitoring and enforcement. This is inarguably the most important point. No matter how good the systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regulations and training are, without continuous monitoring and meaningful enforcement the inevitable elements of human error and human greed will lead to food safety problems. Strong food safety assurance systems, including routine verification that a system is working as intended, are considered essential as it is an accepted notion worldwide that if producers are permitted to improve returns by marketing sub-standard products, they will be tempted to do so.

Monitoring and enforcement encompasses both public and private sector initiatives and requires full transparency of companies and government regulatory bodies. Transparency is classically defined when â&#x20AC;&#x153;much is known by manyâ&#x20AC;? and is one of the prerequisites of an industry working without corruption. In addition, traceability, the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification, is increasingly recognized as an essential component of a food safety system.

Each participant in the supply chain should be able to account for their contribution at 68 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

Above: Chinese consumers inspecting fresh pork in a wet market. These and live animal markets are slowly being replaced by supermarkets

least one step upstream and downstream in the supply chain, and the bigger the producer the more steps up and down the chain should be required. For global brands, the expectation is that they can trace their products back to the raw inputs. Traceability requires strong management skills including production management processes, allocation of responsibility within the organization and system processes, such as testing and a recall and tracing system.

towards a new paradigm

T

he history of food safety around the world and over time is episodic; through some combination of changes in science and technology, human venality and bad luck, high profile food scandals unfold. The scandals drive consumers to demand safer food and governments to try and make better systems. New rules are put in place and the general level of food safety in that area improves. The difference now is that food scares are more public, the food chain is longer and more complex, and it is clear that cooperation across the food chain is essential.

How China balances consumer demands for food safety with local interests that typically favour producers is a key question that will likely drive the pace and direction of reform. www.meatpacking.info

ma r k e t i n g

ne w s

Mcdonald's big push into Asia markets

I

nternational hamburger chain McDonald’s has announced that it is planning on opening more than 1,500 restaurants in China, Hong Kong, and South Korea over the next five years.

The company says that investors interested in becoming franchise owners are welcomed to apply.

Already McDonald’s has 2,800 restaurants in the region, with 235 in Hong Kong alone. In South Korea, around 60 percent of McDonald’s have a delivery service – called McDelivery – which operates 24 hours a day and even allows customers to make their own selec-

tion of Happy Meal toys.

Earlier McDonald’s corporation said that it was seeking strategic partners in Taiwan (ROC) and Japan.

Last year new McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said that the company’s goal was to reduce the amount of restaurants the company owns to just 10 percent worldwide (currently slightly more than 80 percent are owned by franchisees).

While this was seen as good in the short term for McDonald’s bottom line, it won’t do anything to deal with complaints from franchisees who see the company doing little to bring in customers.

Putting pep in pepperoni

H

ormel’s one-man polka band singing commercial about pepperoni has made Advertising Age’s top list for engaging commercials.

Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots tracks new and trendy TV commercials and the singing, foot-stomping, drum/ trumpet/accordion-playing, Grammy nominated Alex Meixner truly puts the pep into Hormel pepperoni.

Already Hormel is the USA’s leading pepperoni, it will be interesting to see how much more this will increase the company’s share of the pepperoni market.

70 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

Move into burgers

C

hipotle Mexican Grill has announced that it has applied for a trademark for ‘Better Burgers’ as part of a business diversification move to open a burger restaurant chain.

"We have two non-Chipotle growth seeds open now - ShopHouse and Pizzeria Locale - and have noted before that the Chipotle model could be applied to a wide variety of foods," Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, told USA Today.

ShopHouse, a Southeast Asian food chain, opened in 2013. Last year, Chipotle began expanding Pizzeria Locale, which specializes in wood-fired pizza, beyond its initial locations in Denver and Boulder, Colorado.

The expansion plans are drawn up as the burrito maker is struggling to recover from an E. coli outbreak and other health safety issues that slowed its business much of last year.

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ma r k e t i n g

IN t e r v i e w

Marketing Welsh meat to German ‘Webers’

A

re you a Weber? Or a LOHAS? Never heard of them? They are the latest nickname and acronym used to describe the sought-after lifestyles on which the wealthy publicly pin their prosperity – at least that’s the case in German social circles.

Patricia Czerniak, Hybu Cig Cymru’s – Meat Promotion Wales – agent in Germany, explains. “We call our target market for Premium Welsh Lamb in Germany the ‘Weber Grill’ consumer – colloquially ‘The Webers’.

These are essentially men, all of whom are into the projection of a Lifestyle Of Health And Sustainability – LOHAS. They used to compare their cars and their watches against each other, and now they compare their Weber barbecue grills.”

She says that independent retailers have started to emerge to cater for the LOHAS consumer. “Lifestyle shops, niche markets that target high worth individuals. They buy the best meats from all over the world and sell them over the counter. People who used to know their wines, whiskies or cigars – they today, know everything about their meat.”

Czerniak, who has represented PGI Welsh Beef and Lamb in Germany for 10 years, says some larger retailers now even have dry aged meat chambers with internet cameras so top end consumers can log on and to watch their meat mature.

MPJ: Is Welsh beef sold at a premium in Germany?

Czerniak: Yes, both, PGI Welsh Lamb and Beef are positioned in Germany as top tier brands. The generic marketing and PR we at HCC do for both meats allows for higher prices towards the customers.

In a market where most of the daily grocery shopping is done by price conscious women, there is now a new group of high end consumers who are searching out top quality, full traceability, heritage, stories and the people behind the products.

The “Webers” are a high social status group of people who exchange their increasingly expert knowledge on meat with each other.

72 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

You mention German men quite a bit; do German men do most of the meat buying or do they just take it more seriously?

It is the women who buy most of the meat on a regular basis, but the Weber men are ‘meat geeks’ and take it much more seriously – almost as a hobby – utilizing extensive research to find the latest techniques to mature and flavor prime cuts.

Weber men read the BEEF! magazine and other special interest media relating to meat, go on butchery courses, learn the differences between international cuts, and take BBQ and cookery classes. These are men who do not go to the supermarket around the corner to buy ‘a steak’, they first learn all about beef and beef farming, then steaks, cuts, marbling, etc., and then they start researching for the best meats they can buy and where they can do so.

How popular is buying meat online in Germany for the Webers?

The online stores are a highly niche market. Although taking up a small share of the overall market, they take up a large market share in value. It is a growing market but, by definition, its eclectic obscurity is part of the cache of competitive discussion and it is likely to remain a prosperous niche market for some time.

You mentioned specialty beef magazines; is there that much interest in beef?

Yes, there are a variety of specialty meat magazines available, and more emerging as the market gains popularity. BEEF! Is currently one of the most popular of these in Germany.

Can the German meat experts actually tell the difference – country, grass fed, etc., with the meat they eat?

In short, yes. The Weber consumer spends considerable

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INTERVIEW

bubby

ma r k e t i n g

amounts of time researching their meat and were it comes from, and soon learn to identify corn fed from grass fed and explain the exact marbling grade.

When most consumers think of Welsh meat they think of lamb; has it been difficult to get German consumers to accept Welsh beef?

Not at all. At the moment the only difficulty is the UK demand for PGI Welsh Beef is so strong, there isn’t enough in the export markets to completely fulfil the demand in the German market.

The Norwegian salmon board promoted just not salmon per but the whole concept – deep, clean, cold water fjords; tall, blond fish farmers wearing ethnic-looking sweaters; and white, white snow with blue, blue skies.

As one person said: ‘At the end of the day, salmon’s salmon. But where it’s grown, that’s the difference and that’s what customers can relate to.” Do you do

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something similar with Wales in marketing Welsh meat?

We do exactly the same except for the fact that lamb’s not lamb but PGI Welsh Lamb, the best lamb in the world.

Is it worthwhile having ‘tastings’ at high-end supermarkets or is this quite difficult to arrange?

‘Tastings’ at high-end supermarkets are vital for consumers to experience the quality. On in-store promotion days we can sell up to 1000% more Welsh Lamb than on non-promotion days.

In the USA, just one celebrity chef mentions a product, ie, vanilla paste, it will sell out within a very short period of time. Have you been able to get a German TV chef to use Welsh beef?

Not yet, but we do intend to do this in the future.

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 73

P r o d uc t s

product news Eliminate burst casings Handtmann PVLS 143 linking technology improves productivity by dramatically reducing the extra labor and waste associated with rework by virtually eliminating first portion weight and ramp-up issues, burst casings and weight variations, says the company. PVLS 143 helps manage first portion rework issues in two ways: its adjustable ramp-up acceleration rates eliminates burst casings at the start, and its adjustable first portion weight settings reduce rework.

Handtmannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fast 3-horn rotation provides extra operator time for error-free casing loading, reducing problems and enabling smooth, non-stop operation. PVLS 143 solutions integrate precise weight, gentle handling, simple controls and fast changeovers with rugged dependability and lower lifecycle costs.

New weighing transmitter

Continuous in-feed slicer

The ACT350 weighing transmitter from Mettler Toledo is designed for the needs of control system integrators and OEM machine builders. It provides 600 filtered-weight values per second for fast weighing processes with an accuracy of 10,000d. No additional software filtering is necessary to eliminate vibrations. This allows customers to quickly and cost-effectively integrate high-speed weight data into their automated PLC control systems.

Fieldbus connectivity via EtherNet/IP, Profinet RT or Profibus is incorporated in a compact DIN-Rail unit saving cabinet space.

The ACT350 simplifies the integration process by leveraging device description files making installation easy.

An integrated OLED display shows weight values and can be used in combination with the keyboard to configure and receive status information.

Designed and engineered in New Zealand, the Titan 200 Continuous In-feed Slicer delivers cutting-edge food processing technology in a surprisingly compact machine.

The Slicer is suitable for processing a wide range of products including: bacon, ham, luncheon meats, salami, pepperoni, roast beef, chicken, cheese, and fish.

With it, operators can load product on the tractor in-feed belt as fast as the machine can slice it. It features a twin motor orbital blade that allows the Titan 200 to slice up to 600 times a minute with blade speeds ups to 1,500 rpm. The 200 still has the smallest footprint with the biggest throat available and it comes equipped with the leading edge features found in much larger slicers.

74 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

www.meatpacking.info

p r o d uc t

Grades 180 portions per minute AccuSizer belt grader/classifier systems from Gainco are designed to meet your product sizing and batching needs, says the company. These belt sizers have user-friendly interfaces, advanced weighing technology and a robust rugged platform.

Gainco offer’s grading and sizing speeds up to 180 portions per minute, depending on your product’s size. Combining this degree of speed and pinpoint accuracy results in healthier profits showing up on your bottom line. The system's hygienic openframe design in the food contact area improves the effectiveness of chemical wash down procedures while preventing water from pooling and bacteria from collecting. Likewise, infeed, weighing and out-feed units are easily accessible for cleaning and maintenance checks. Specially designed pivoting out-feed chutes improve cleanability and servicing. All electronics are housed in a highly protective IP69K-rated enclosure.

Verdad extends shelf life Corbion Purac continues to create new ‘natural’ products for the meat processors looking for cleaner label options that meet consumer demand, while extending shelf life and safety, and enhancing quality and consistency of meat and poultry products.

Two new products are Verdad AvantaTM Y100 and Verdad AvantaTM F100. Corbion says that TM Y100 is a formula labeled as vinegar and citrus fiber that effectively delivers cook yield increase from 3-9% and improves texture and slice ability, while also extending shelf life and controlling Listeria in ready-to-eat meats.

TM F100 is labeled as vinegar and jasmine tea extract (or natural flavor), and provides prolonged freshness in raw and processed meats like sausages. Both will be shown at IFFA.

Robot with knife Poultry processors are always looking for optimal use of all incoming products, reducing give-away to a minimum. To support processors achieving this goal, Marel Poultry has developed “a robot with a knife”, a concept for intelligent fixed-weight poultry batching. It's about the interaction between the I-Cut 122 PortionCutter and the RoboBatcher Flex, deciding which fillet weights best match the order requirements. Instead of cutting all fillets to one ideal average, this concept focuses on assessing individual breast fillets and it only cuts what is really needed. The RoboBatcher Flex is Marel's most advanced fillet batching system, with utmost flexibility and minimized giveaway. The Marel I-Cut 122 PortionCutter has been designed for high-speed cutting of boneless, non-frozen poultry to fixed weight products.

www.meatpacking.info

May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 75

D ire c t o ry

Directory Accles & Shelvoke

Jarvis Products Corporation

Stork Poultry Processing

Services: Slaughter and stunning Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.acclesandshelvoke.co.uk Tel: +44 (0) 121 313 4567 Email: info@acclesandshelvoke.co.uk

Services: Processing, Slaughter Species: Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.jarvisproducts.com Tel: +1 860 347 7271 Email: sales@jarvisproducts.com

Banss America

MPS meat processing systems

Services: Food safety and hygiene, Logistics and handling, Processing, Slaughter Species: Pork, Red Meat Region: North America Web: www.banssamerica.com Tel: +1 407 930 3554 Email: gpolitis@banss.de

Services: Slaughter, Processing, Further processing, Weighing and portioning,, Waste treatment, logistics Species: Pork, Red Meat, Region: Worldwide Web: www.mps-group.nl Tel: +31 544 390500 Email: info@mps-group.nl

Services: Further Processing, IT solutions, Labeling and packaging, Logistics and handling, Other services, Processing, Refrigeration, Slaughter, Weighing and portioning Species: Poultry Region: Worldwide Web: www.marel.com/poultry Tel: +31 (0) 485 586 111 Email: info.poultry@marel.com

Dohmeyer Services: Cooling and refrigeration; further processing Species: Pork, Poultry, Red meat, Other Region: Worldwide Web: www.dohmeyer.com Tel: +48 17 788 98 17 Email: info@dohmeyer.com

Multisorb

FRC Systems International

Prime Equipment Group

Services: Waste management Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.frcsystems.com Tel: +1 770 534 3681 Email: info@frcsystems.com

Services: Processing, Slaughter Species: Poultry, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.primeequipmentgroup.com Tel: +1 614 253 8590 Fax: +1 614 253 6966 Email: Sales@PrimeEquipmentGroup.com

Handtmann

Services: Packaging Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.multisorb.com Tel: +1 716 824 8900 Email: info@multisorb.com

Services: Processing, Further processing, Weighing and portioning Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.handtmann.de Tel: +49 7351 45 0 Email: info.machines@handtmann.de

Provisur Technologies

Hyde Industrial Blade Solutions

Reiser

Services: Further Processing, Processing, Slaughter Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.hydeblades.com Tel: +1 (508) 764-4344 Email: sales@hydeblades.com

Services: Further Processing, Labeling and packaging, Processing Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Europe, North America Web: www.reiser.com Tel: +1 614 253 8590 Email: sales@reiser.com

Services: Further Processing, Processing Species: Poultry, Pork, Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.provisur.com Tel: +1 312 204 6042 Email: info@provisur.com

Scott Technology Services: Further Processing, Logistics and handling, Processing, Refrigeration Species: Red Meat Region: Worldwide Web: www.scott.co.nz Tel: +1 614 253 8590 Email: sales@scott.co.nz

Get your company listed in print and online

sales@meatpacking.info

76 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

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e v en t s

2016 22-25 May Alltech One Lexington, KY, USA one.alltech.com 22-25 June FOOD TAIPEI Taipei www.foodtaipei.com.tw 27-29 July PROCESSED FOOD INDUSTRY Mexico City www.mexicofoodsummit.com 2-4 August ANUTEC 2016 Curitiba, Brazil www.koelnmessenafta.com 6-8 September VIV CHINA 2016 Beijing www.vivchina.nl 8-9 November WORLD MEAT CONGRESS Punta del Este, Uruguay www.worldmeatcongress2016.com 8-9 November MEAT CHINA 2016 Shanghai www.fhcchina.com com 28-30 November EFFOST International Conference Shanghai www.effostconference.com 15-17 March 2017 VIV ASIA 2017 Bangkok www.vivasia.nl 06-08 July VIV TURKEY 2017 Istanbul www.vivturkey.com

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May~June 2016 | Meat Packing Journal | 77

C O n t ac t s

Velo Mitrovich

Rhian Owen

Editorial

Sales

Velo Mitrovich

Jim Robertson

Editor +44 1442 780 591 velo@meatpacking.info

James Chappelow

Technical Editor james@meatpacking.info

Jack Young

Head of Sales +44 1442 780 593 jim@rebymedia.com

Monique Hinton

Sales executive +44 1442 780 594 monique@rebymedia.com

Jim Robertson

SUBscriptions Meat Packing Journal is a bimonthly magazine mailed every January, March, May, July, September and November. Subscriptions can be purchased for six or 12 issues. Prices for single issue subscriptions or back issues can be obtained by emailing: subscriptions@meatpacking.info One year: US$49, two year: US$89

Executive

reby media

Jack Young

Reby House

Publisher jack@rebymedia.com

Rhian Owen

Group Editor +44 1442 780 592 rhian@meatpacking.info

42 Crouchfield Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire HP1 1PA Great Britain info@rebymedia.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the express prior written consent of the publisher.

Meat Packing Journal ISSN 2054-4677 is published bimonthly by Reby Media, 42 Crouchfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 1PA. Subscription records are maintained at Reby Media, 42 Crouchfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 1PA. Meat Packing Journal and its Editorial Board accept no responsibility for the accuracy of statements or opinion given within the Journal that is not the expressly designated opinion of the Journal or its Editorial Board. Those opinions expressed in areas other than editorial comment may not be taken as being the opinion of the Journal or its staff, and the aforementioned accept no responsibility or liability for actions that arise therefrom.

78 | Meat Packing Journal | May~June 2016

The content of Meat Packing Journal is subject to copyright. However, if you would like to obtain copies of an article for marketing purposes high-quality reprints can be supplied to your specification. Please contact the advertising team for full details of this service. Meat Packing Journal is printed at Buxton Press Ltd, Derbyshire, UK.

Editorial advisory board Meat Packing Journal is advised and guided by an editorial advisory board formed of leading professionals and researchers

Jorge Ruiz Carrascal University of Copenhagen Fred W. Pohlman University of Arkansas Ian Richardson University of Bristol Graeme Rolinson Marel

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VACUUM FILLING HAS A NEW NAME

HANDTMANN VF 800 EXPERIENCE THE PREMIERE OF THE YEAR

Join us for the reveal of the VF 800 on 7th May 2016 at 11:00 a.m.

Hall 8.0, Stand D96 Albert Handtmann Maschinenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG Phone +49 7351 45-0 info.machines@handtmann.de www.handtmann-iffa.com