Meat + Poultry - September 2005 - 47

Early versions for the center track restrainer
conveyor were designed for veal and sheep.
Grandin modified the design for use with
larger animals.
(Photo courtesy of Grandin Livestock Systems, Inc.)

MEAT&POULTRY

September 2005

Engineers also had
to build false floors
below the restrainers so the animals
wouldn't see that they
were seven feet off
of the ground. During
the two-week installation and start up of the
center-track restrainer at
the Excel plant Grandin
lived at a hotel across
the street from the plant.
She remembers that on
subsequent installations
she would visit the plants
for two days to make sure
the systems were working
as they should. She points
out that the two-day visits
are important to ensure
someone didn't take liberties with her designs, which
had occurred early on at the
second installation.
Other early adopters of Grandin's
center restraint conveyor system
included the Montfort beef plant in
Greeley, Colo. and National Beef in
Liberal, Kan., and Grand Island, Neb.
Today, more than half of the cattle in
North America go through Grandin's
handling systems. "The three biggest
plants in Canada have them (center
restraint systems), all of Excel's
plants have them, National Beef have
them in their two plants and IBP has
them in their biggest plants." In terms
of pork plants, Seaboard Farms has
adopted Grandin's technology as has
Indiana Packers. Other companies
came out with restrainers for pigs after Grandin's was rolled out in the mid
80s, including Stork.
There are two companies commercially manufacturing center restraint
conveyor systems for cattle, both of
which have a history of working with
Grandin: Accurate Fabrication & Finish, Evans, Colo. and All Power, Inc.,
in Sioux City, Iowa. For center track
systems designed for pigs, Turnkey
Welding is Grandin's preferred com-

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pany. Because Grandin has worked
with these companies for years, she
gives them her endorsement over any
company that decides it will engineer
its own restrainer. "I just hope that
companies like Stan Bassinger's (All
Power) keep building them because I
don't have to worry about them being built right. For plants that decide
to build their own systems Grandin
offers 20 pages of blueprints to anyone who wants to start from scratch,
which she says for most companies,
makes little sense.
Testing the water
To get a new technology adopted
in the meat industry, there is often
resistance, such as going from reciprocating saws to band saws for splitting carcasses. "There was a lot of
resistance to (new types of saws) for
a long time because people just didn't
like something new because it wasn't
something they had to do. It was just
an improvement on the existing equipment. When introducing something
new, you've got to make sure your
earliest adopters work." Once the details of the entryway were worked out,
false floors were in place, hold-down
racks were manufactured, adjustable
sides were in place and leg-spreader
bars were all in sync, Grandin says
animals ride peacefully down the conveyor, which is her signal that she can
begin stepping away from the project.
"We had to get them to walk in easily
and ride quietly."
Looking back, Grandin says that
without the seed money, none of which
came from the meat processing industry, there would be no center track
restraining system today. "With a total
of $260,000 worth of seed money I got
a complete calf system that works and I
got a complete, commercial-ready big
cattle system that worked and was installed in the plant. That's pretty good
for the R&D budget I had."
We would like to hear from you- your comments
and questions about this article are welcome.
E-mail the author at: meat&poultry@sosland.com

http://www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Meat + Poultry - September 2005

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