Patent
1988-11-23
1990-04-24
Little, Willis
17 1G, 17 50, 17 21, A22C 2516
Patent
active
049187880
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to improvements in meat recovery from carcase sections, a procedure which is also called deboning. It can be applied to carcase sections of any domestic animal that is slaughtered for meat on a substantial scale. Essentially, the invention is directed towards the provision of mass-production processes for deboning.
One traditional method of deboning centres around a production unit consisting of a single butcher with hand implements, such as knives, hacksaws and cleavers, who places one carcase section on his workbench and processes it from start to finish before proceeding to the next carcase section to be deboned. Another known deboning method is intermittent, and employs several butchers at a series of separate work stations, each butcher carrying out one of a succession of deboning steps on a given individual carcase section, whereupon powered mechanical means are used to convey the carcase sections to the next work station in the series, for the attention of the next butcher, or from the last butcher to a collection point.
These known methods require considerable manual skill and anatomical knowledge, are labour-intensive and have low output rates. Deboning has generally been thought ill-adapted to automation. Furthermore certain portions of meat are so small or so inaccessible that it has been uneconomic to pursue them heretofore, and they go to waste. Thus, having regard to the available sale price levels for meat on world markets, there is a long-felt need for speedier and more efficient deboning methods.
It is an object of the invention to provide a process and apparatus for deboning carcase sections continuously and with due regard for the safety and convenience of the operators. Another object is to divide the meat recovery process into discrete steps, providing appropriate equipment for the manual, semi-automatic or fully automatic execution of each step and arranging this equipment in operating sequence on a powered mechanical conveyor. A further object of the invention is to provide a hygienic process of deboning animal carcase sections which process reduces the amount of handling to which the sections are subjected and accordingly minimizes contamination of the meat, as determined by its bacterial count.
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a continuous process for recovering meat from a plurality of animal carcase sections of the same type and approximately the same size, which process comprises
(a) mounting the carcase parts in sequence on a continuously moving powered conveyor,
(b) advancing each mounted carcase section past a plurality of work stations, wherein a given work station may be attended by a manual operator or an automatic tool or a combination of both,
(c) dissecting each moving carcase part in a succession of steps, one at each work station, to obtain progressive separation of the meat from the bones, and
(d) recovering the separated meat.
The bones are preferably also recovered, separately from the meat, since they can be further processed to yield products of value such as bone meal.
Typical automatic tools for use in step (b) are splitting knives, incisor blades, circular saws, carcase section displacing members or cams, means for directing fluid jets under high pressure, and scraper blades. They are all mounted on substantially stationary anchorages above or to one or both sides of the conveying member. Some of them may be resiliently biased to accommodate differences in size of successive carcase parts on the conveyor, and to allow for the changing cross-sectional profile of the bony core of a carcase part as the conveyor carries it forward in contact with a tool which does not share in that motion. Resilient bias is, however, unnecessary in the case of splitting knives and impractical for circular saws.
The carcase parts, mounted on the conveyor, are preferably secured so that manual operators or automatic tools, especially scraper blades, may engage the soft tissues right down to the bone surface without displacing the
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