Cold Fat Removal

Summary

Fat trimming predominantly occurs in the boning room, where the fat to be removed has been chilled and as a result becomes very tough resulting in what is known as “hard” fat. The fat is manually removed from the meat cut with a hand knife, resulting in significant stress injuries to the hand, wrist and elbow. As this is the final process for the appearance of the cut, the skill of the operator is important in being able to achieve.

This project is a feasibility study to investigate the possible systems or technologies available to be integrated into a machine or device for “trimming” of the fat covering on the strip loin and cube roll primal cuts once chilled.

Objectives

The objective of the Feasibility Study stage of the Cold Fat Trimming project is to investigate systems or technologies that can be integrated into a machine or device for “trimming” of the fat covering on the strip loin and cube roll primal cuts.

The proposed system would include a conveyor element, means of primal identification, and a guided cutting device utilising automatic depth control that operates on cold fat.

Key findings

A primal cold fat trimming machine is feasible, however further trials in the form of a future “Proof of Concept Stage” of this project will be required. These trials would determine the optimum set up and performance of any system, including layout, sensing and cutting methods, optimal speed and approximate manufactured cost of a production system.

Benefits to industry

The Australian Meat Industry has identified cold fat trimming on well conditioned carcass sides as a procedure that is costly due to the following:

• Highly labor intensive task of reducing the fat thickness to specification.
• Occupational health and safety issues of cutting hard fat.
• The necessity of providing a high quality product appearance and finish of meat products destined for Asian markets where appearance is paramount.
• Gas bubble formation that can reduce the visual product acceptance of vacuum packed meat.

The potential benefit of this project is the labour savings associated with removal of cold fat trimming tasks, the associated occupational health and safety improvements and the uniform/consistent nature of cuts increasing the value of this high end product.

MLA action

The fact that there is a competing technology which has the added benefit of trimming prior to chilling (thus saving on energy costs as well), and with the general philosophy that “the earlier in any process that value can be added, there is a greater return through the process”, it is thus recommended that the next stage of this project be deferred until the results of the hot fat trimming project can be investigated to the stage of mutual market determination.

Related MLA projects

PRTEC.020; PRTEC.024; PRTEC.038