New conveyor makes chicken processing more hygienic

15 May 2022

Particularly strict hygiene requirements apply when handling and processing open foodstuffs in order to minimise the risk of contamination.

Interroll is helping companies that handle chicken meat to meet this challenge with its new Ultra Hygienic Transfer (UHT), which offers a new solution for automated material handling processes ¬– the conveyor module reduces the number of meat particles that end up on existing conveyor systems after cutting. Combined with hygienic product design, which allows for particularly effective cleaning, it is said to reduce the risk of germ contamination, and enables improved shelf life of chicken products and end-to-end quality control along operational processes.

The UHT was developed following extensive surveys of international customers and users in the food industry. It is based on the principles of hygienic product design and, as a modular product, has a robust and open design that is easy to clean. The conveyor module can be installed between the upstream cutting machines and the downstream conveyor belts as a stand-alone solution – without additional sensors – requiring only a power connection for the integrated drum motor.

Depending on requirements, wing or breast meat is transported in stainless steel screen baskets which, instead of chutes, pick up the meat individually in a circular conveyor process and then deposit it on an existing conveyor belt. Corresponding measurements at test customers have shown that this solution reduces the number of meat particles usually produced in the flow of goods by up to 90% and reduces the germ load of the processed meat products compared to the chutes commonly used to date.

The separation of the conveyed goods offers another benefit – instead of turning the breast caps or wings from piece goods to bulk goods at this process step, the UHT ensures that they could remain identifiable along the entire process chain – for example, through appropriate sensor technology in conjunction with goods management systems.