Meat + Poultry - May 2005 - 41

Yield

are some of the things processors are
doing to assist with increasing yields,
says Scanga. "They are trying to take
a lot of the physical labor out of it, so
that they can take more time being
skillful rather than wrestling with
product on tables."
Training is an ongoing process. "If
plants start to see yields slip or if they
see areas where they can gain some
advantage, they are going to spend
time training those employees basically to help them do their job better,"
Scanga says.
Brawley shares yield numbers with
its employees on a daily basis. "They
really enjoy getting some feedback on
how they are doing. It's something
they can measure themselves against,"
Fitzgerald says. "We put it on a chart
so they can see what their goal line is
and where they are headed."
Immediate feedback
To give employees immediate feedback on yield, CAT2, Conway, Ark.,
recently introduced the SPC Yield for
poultry deboning lines. The system
focuses on finding where waste is occurring by conducting scrape tests on
deboned carcasses, according to Mike
Sardinha, president.
One of the key ways SPC Yield increases yield is by playing on people's
competitive nature, he says. After
scrape tests are completed, the numbers are put up on a scoreboard so employees can see how they are performing against other employees. "Because
of that competitiveness, you start to
see yields improving," he says. The
scoreboards are color-coded. Green
means yields are being met; orange
shows that yields are still being met
but not quite as high; and red indicates
yields are below the baseline.
"This method is constantly giving
feedback as to what your yield is right
now," Sardinha notes. "If yields are
going south, you can take action then
and there to correct it."

MEAT&POULTRY

May 2005

ground beef yield
Kenosha Beef International Ltd.,
Kenosha, Wis., processes raw and
precooked ground beef for fastfood restaurant chains. It blends
fat and lean meat to achieve final
target fat level per its customers' specifications. To assure it
achieves maximum yield, Kenosha
Beef has incorporated a production meat analysis system from
MEPACO-Enhancers that uses a
near-infrared sensor and weighbelt to perform an in-line analysis
of fat content.
Kenosha Beef's use of the
meat analysis system is two-fold.
It determines the fat content of
material that it receives from its
suppliers, as well as ensuring the
fat content of the products it is
grinding are within the margins
set by its customers.
"Lean content of the finished
product and the raw materials
coming in are probably the two
most important issues, because a
percentage point or a half a percentage point off can run into lots
and lots of money," says Mike Robinson, vice-president of operations
at Kenosha Beef, parent company
of Birchwood Foods.
Prior to installing this system, the
company performed core samples
of its raw material. The automated
in-line system gives them the opportunity to narrow their standard
deviation and it all but eliminates

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

the need to adjust batches after the
fact, he says.
"You know truly what your raw
materials are, when you introduce
them to the mixer," Robinson adds.
"And you are pretty sure what that
finished product is going to be even
before you start the blending process,
so it eliminates adjustments, which
minimizes the testing time, which
increases your throughput."
The system also allows Kenosha
Beef to more thoroughly check raw
materials it receives from its suppliers. "If I am expecting a 90 lean or a
50 lean raw material, I want to make
sure that is what I am receiving,"
Robinson says. "I don't want it to be
any fatter than that, or it is going to
have a serious economical impact on
my bottom line."
It is critical for processors to have
the narrowest possible standard
deviation, according to Robinson "If
you have the ability to have your fat
percentage on the upper end of the
acceptable level that is what you
want to do on a consistent basis
because obviously if you are trying
to achieve a 75 percent lean product,
and you have the ability to have a 1
percent tolerance on the top side or
bottom side of that, you always want
to be on the top side of it. And you
want that standard deviation to be as
tight as possible, so you can achieve
a consistent finished product as far as
fat percentage is concerned."

http://www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Meat + Poultry - May 2005

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meat + Poultry - May 2005