Technology Helping Meat Industry Move to Greater Capacity

Previously, the meat industry used to be conservative in embracing modern technologies; today, it adopts new technology at a fast rate.

FREMONT, CA: Automation has fuelled a significant transformation in the meat industry. Overall, the meat production chain is complex and impacted by many factors, beginning with breeding, farming, nutrition, and transportation of animals, primary processing, further processing, and distribution to the end consumer. Improvement programs within the meat industry are multifactorial. Usually, they take years from start to finish. Read on to know more.

An example of the high degree of automation in modern meat processing plants is the equipment currently used to slice meat. The machine leverages laser scanners to offer the computer a 3D image of the cut. With the overall weight and estimation of the fat covering, the computer controls a high speed, rotating blade to cut fixed weight portions. The knife can perform 700 cuts in a minute with a high degree of accuracy. This equipment's development is an example of a successful joint initiative among meat scientists, mechanical engineers, computer scienti

sts, and machine vision technicians. This machine can run dozens of modern meat processing plant employees at much higher accuracy, speed, and sanitation level.

 The introduction of electronics and computers to automate production was a revolution in meat processing. Today, some meat sector segments are moving rapidly towards the fourth revolution, where cyber-physical systems with virtual interlinking appear on the market. The high-speed automated meat is a cutting device depending on various sensors; selling meat on the internet at international auctions; virtual modeling of cooking and chilling operations designed to improve food safety.

Significant progress has been seen over the past few years in the meat industry. This has been possible due to the advancements in meat science, animal science, genetics, animal nutrition, welfare, engineering, and computer sciences. Innovations helped to deploy more automation in primary and secondary meat processing facilities, improve efficiency, and mitigate manual labor to address the labor shortage, worker availability, and injuries. Advances have led the industry to move to greater capacity production and contributing to reduced production costs.