How has Technology Impacted Poultry Processing?

Setting benchmarks in the poultry processing the past year has marked to be a record-breaking year for the U.S. poultry industry with more than 41 billion pounds of chicken being marketed to American throughout the country.

Food and Beverages Tech Review | Tuesday, January 21, 2020

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Setting benchmarks in the poultry processing the past year has marked to be a record-breaking year for the U.S. poultry industry with more than 41 billion pounds of chicken being marketed to American throughout the country.

FREMONT, CA: The rising demand for chicken is keeping the farmers busy, and also gives rise to concerns for the chicken processors who need to hire and train many workers to cut, debone, and package poultry products, are the tasks that have not been easily automated in the past. In the past few years, it was a difficult task to recruit those workers. Times have changed now, and automated technology is enabling to drive efficiency, automate more tasks, and reduce waste in the poultry processing line. The U.S. poultry employs more than 280,000 workers; still, a few good hands will be beneficiary.

The Twirl of Automation

A new wave of automation technologies is taking the poultry processing industry in the future. New technologies are being introduced, like Cryovac Whole Bird Automation system, which automatically beaks the hock of the birds, put them in a bag and vacuum seal the package. This technique increases the velocity of a line from four birds per minute to 45 and cuts down on the workforce needed from 5 to one. It also reduced the capital investment for small and mid-sized operations as it breaks down into five components to cater to the needs.

Such kind of automation makes the workforces more efficient, as well as improves working conditions by discarding repetitive tasks and cross-contamination. When many people handle a contaminated chicken, the rest of the chicken becomes more susceptible to disease. It is not much to say that automation is the key to reducing the incidence rate of injury and illness in the industry. Hence, automation is the best solution for the workforce, leading to efficient workers and reduce employee turnover.

When automation is combined with data analytics, it helps in insulating poultry processors form the growing cost and labor. It can strengthen operations and profits and make them very competitive in the industry as a whole.