Meat+Poultry - October 2017 - 41

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

through all the bellies. When we get a
combo in we have to utilize what we
have and make it run down the line. The
more consistent your product is, the
more consistent your slicing will be. The
newer systems have a lot of things that
help minimize those types of problems.
Also temperature, and that's an
internal control. The temperature has
got to be right on that bacon for the
machinery to perform the way it needs
to. If it's the right temperature, those
machines work right. So, your internal
control on temperatures is imperative
to giving the machinery a chance to do
its job.
M+P: You mention belly sizes. Can you
discuss the influence of size?
Fletcher: I think most of the equipment
operators can get a machine to do what
they need as long as the bellies are
consistent. Bellies are bigger than they
used to be, and that's just because the
hogs are larger. I think the pigs that we
have in the US today are very consistent
size wise. So, I think the packers are
doing a good job of delivering us a
consistent product more so than they
did maybe 20 years ago. I think most

of us are leaning to that 13-lb. to 17-lb.
belly in our niche of the business.
M+P: How does slicing for retail and
slicing for foodservice differ?
Fletcher: In our case, you've got to
remember we're a smaller processor,
we try to deliver the same quality to
retail and foodservice. We have a spec
that says this is an end slice, and this is
a center slice, and it's based upon some
lean requirements and looks of the
product. I think the requirements for
them do change for a lot of companies,
not necessarily us, in that foodservice
bacon is usually cooked when the
customer sees it, whereas on the
retail side, the appearance to get the
customer to pick that package up is
always imperative. Whether the shingle
is right, whether the package lays right
and whether it displays a satisfactory
amount of lean on the packaging side of
it matter greatly.
I think you've always got to look at
that, having an appealing package that
the customer is going to at least look at
when they walk by the counter as they
make their buying decision, and not
just for the dollars and cents of it.

Keith Fletcher

M+P: Can you talk about the flexibility
of the slicers that Burgers' uses for its
bacon?
Fletcher: One line is very flexible and
can do a lot of things for us. Depending
on the size of the runs and what else
we're doing, we can run product on
some different lines that maybe aren't
quite as automated, but we can still
survive with the productivity we get out
of them and the product works fine.
It's a productivity thing for us. I
have one slicer, it will do a lot of things
for us, but we utilize that machinery
to do what we think is the most
productive for us that given day. We
offload other slicing options to the
other machines based on what we
think we can get our best package and
productivity out of.
There's just some little things you
get into with customers. We do a retail
mail order business and there's just a
few things that you do small volume
of to fill a niche market that we utilize
those smaller slicers or less automated
slicers for.
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