6 questions about high-volume chicken fillet portioning

1.      How do consumers want their fillets?

Most people eat their breast meat products either at home or in a restaurant. In both cases, their choice will depend on family size and taste. This could be for fillets, tenderloins, medallions, strips, nuggets or cubes, each with its own detailed specification. Products should look and weigh the same and it should be possible to produce them in large volumes. Only high-speed intelligent portioning equipment can achieve this. Such systems should preferably have dual lanes and it should be easy to change from one portioning option to another.

3.      How to make more of offcuts?

Trim is an inevitable by-product of portioning. You will always have offcuts, however small. These are from top-quality muscle meat and can be used to maximum effect in value-added further processed products. To realize their full potential, even the smallest pieces must be managed efficiently. It may sound obvious but the best way to do this is to automatically separate trim from the main product in a controlled way, so that both proceed on separate conveyor systems to their next destination in the process. Valuable off-cuts don’t then end up as a bulk low value item; their own dedicated processing line upgrades them to high-quality poultry meat.

5.      How can technology help optimize portioning fillets?

Using the very latest vision control technology such as laser light together with innovative portioning software, it is possible to determine the exact shape of each fillet and calculate the best possible way of portioning it. A screen shows clearly how fillets are to be cut. Software enables remote programming and the storage of a large number of customer-specific cutting programs in its software menu.

Today’s customers, whether supermarket chains or quick-service restaurants, demand a large portfolio of different products from poultry processors. It is therefore important that any portioning system not only handles high hourly volumes but can also handle more than one product specification at the same time. Besides the ability to make different products on different lanes, it must be possible to switch quickly from one product to another. Intelligent software makes such changes a matter of tapping a few keys.