HOW ONE POULTRY PROCESSOR BOOSTED PRODUCTIVITY BY OVER 75%

Changing demographics and societal shifts are intensifying pressures across all types of businesses, not least the food processing sector.

As a whole, our buying behaviour has adapted over time and, as a consumer, you can probably relate to this in some way. Our expectations are now higher than ever before and, with a growing population, demand is becoming far greater too.

The poultry market is one area that is increasingly under pressure to adapt to growing consumer wants and needs. If you’re like me, you’ll like your chicken packaged in fixed weight packs, coming in all types of forms from breast fillets to wings. You probably also want meat pre-sliced. After all, we want food which is easy to cook as well as high in quality.

But how does this work in practice?

Get in-line

As you can imagine, for a business, the need to remain competitive is essential and adapting to these new demands is a must. One organisation doing just that is Almarai, a major poultry processing firm that we worked with during the launch of its Alyoum brand of premium chicken products.

Looking to adapt to the fast-paced, consumer-driven world, Almarai invested in a whole host of poultry processing equipment. This included re-hanging and cut-up systems, deboning machinery, multihead weighers, checkweighers, tray sealers and batching and grading systems as well as X-ray inspection systems and metal detectors.

Linking-up

The secret ingredient to achieving an exceptional level of operation was to reach the same level in integration – and Almarai did just that. From live bird handling all the way down to labelling and crating, everything is linked and offers a great example of how in-line poultry processing can really work. This helps to enhance quality, efficiency and speed across the board. 

Weighing and packing processes were also automated to the same advanced level, reducing giveaway to exceptionally low levels. This supported Almarai on its mission towards leading the market on fixed weight packs. 

Separate lines were introduced to keep the process streamlined and efficient, which also helped to ensure little to no chicken was wasted – a real triumph for this large chicken processing plant.

Game-changing results

What began as a 21,000 bph (birds per hour) factory and farming site, became a 37,000 bph facility in the space of just three years. You’d be right in thinking that the factory, with its 200 million birds per year capacity, is now one of the largest single output poultry processing plants in the world.

If you wished to discuss how Ishida could help improve your factory’s productivity, please feel free to connect with me. To find out how you can achieve similar results, download our new white paper, The Poultry Processing Blueprint