To stay competitive, supermarkets need frequent deliveries of varied marinated poultry products. But marinating usually requires time-consuming changeovers and equipment cleaning – including tumbler, elevator, multi-head weigher, tools for the weigher and the marinade dispenser.
So Cabinplant has introduced a post-marinating unit for fresh poultry meat that enables production and packaging in small batches, with a frequent change of marinades. The system disrupts the process because marinating is done after portion weighing.
Marinade is added to fresh meat in a mixing-tool just before the meat is dropped in the tray. This means that only the tool and the dispenser need to be cleaned, allowing a more frequent shift of variants, according to the company.
The unit replaces the traditional, inflexible and ‘dirty’ tumbler/drum solutions with between 500 and 1,000kg of meat and up to 100 litres of marinade.
Change-over time is reduced by between 10 and 15 minutes (from 45 minutes), the meat is treated far more gently, and the cleaning time is reduced with up to 80% because there is less equipment to clean, the company said.
The marinade dispenser can be integrated with the weigher vary the dosage relative to the weight of the meat. If the meat weighs more than minimum, the amount of marinade is reduced accordingly. This saves marinade and results in packages of consistent weight.