Patent
1984-11-30
1988-01-05
Abercrombie, Willie G.
17 1G, A22C 1704
Patent
active
047166266
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a method and a device by means of which it is possible to perform various operations involving the manual removal of meat from a carcass or half-carcass, in particular, of a bovine animal.
After slaughter, the carcasses and half-carcasses of bovine animals are usually placed in cold storage. When the carcasses or half-carcasses are required for distribution, manual deboning is performed, whereby portions of the half-carcass consisting both of bone and attached muscles are cut off in succession. After this first deboning operation, the muscle is cut off with a view to its distribution, before which, if necessary, various additional ooerations, such as storage and packaging, are performed.
An attempt has already been made to improve these artisanal methods by performing a series of deboning operations on a half-carcass immediately after slaughter, the meat still being warm and pliable. Thus, French Pat. No. 2,329,208 describes a method for automatically boning a suspended half-carcass which is then taken up and moved to different stations along an automatic deboning plant. According to this patent, the half-carcass is held in position for certain operations by means of a "hooking-up" process whereby the half-carcass is placed flat and then set-up on a working surface. The half-carcass is then pulled along by a chain, the links of which are able to take hold of the straightened vertebral column, each link gripping a vertebra between the medulary cavity and the external part of the split vertebra. Automatically operated knife blades can then cut up the meat along the bones.
In practice, this method, however, has a certain number of drawbacks. In fact, in most cases, it is extremely difficult to straighten the vertebral column of half-carcasses on account of the vertebral column being insufficiently flexible. Adequate gripping cannot be ensured by gripping the vertebral column, between the medullary cavity and the external zone, and this gives rise to the risk of slipping. Moreover, on account of the entirely automatic nature of the cutting devices, it is not always possible in practice to follow closely the shade of the bone so that some of the muscle risks being left on the carcass.
Therefore, the subject of the present invention is a method of treatment which overcomes these drawbacks and which, in particular, allows the muscles to be cut off from a carcass or half-carcass manually without removal of the bones and practically without any contact with the bones, in a rapid, practical and hygienic manner, not possible hitherto.
The method according to the invention thus adopts a different approach from that advocated in the above-mentioned French Pat. No. 2,329,208, by cutting off the muscles from the carcass without performing the intermediate operation of deboning. The method according to the invention represents a considerable improvement compared to the previously used method for treating a half-carcass, whilst at the same time improving the manual tasks of the personnel involved in operating a semi-automatic plant.
The invention also relates to a supporting device which can be used in a plant where the method according to the invention can be implemented.
In the case of the method, according to the invention, for processing the carcasses or half-carcasses of bovine animals or other quadrupeds, these carcasses are initially processed in a vertically suspended position. In the case of the method according to the invention, the carcass or half-carcass is transferred from its vertical position into a substantially horizontal position, it is kept supported or suspended in this position and the muscles are successively cut off from the carcass or half-carcass without performing a substantial intermediate deboning operation, so that at the end of processing the skeleton of the carcass or half-carcass remains held in its horizontal position. In this manner the muscles are then successively cut off from the bones which remain attached to the vertebral column which itself is kept su
REFERENCES:
patent: 3748146 (1973-07-01), Anderson et al.
patent: 4128916 (1978-12-01), Fick, Jr. et al.
patent: 4385419 (1983-05-01), Cantrell
Chiron Gabriel
Fradin Maurice
Soullard Marcel
Abercrombie Willie G.
Bocaviande Chiron
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