Technology ‘pushing processing to new heights’
Consumer demand is driving seafood product quality and diversity to new heights, Marel, the international food processing equipment company, told the 13th annual North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) in Bergen, Norway, earlier this month.
MAREL executives spoke at the forum’s aquaculture and salmon seminar to address how technological advances are rapidly elevating levels of automation in the seafood processing industry.
The company has said these are exciting times for anyone involved in fish processing, with the rate and global spread of increasing automation amounting to a revolution in the industry.
Marel’s core markets - salmon, cod and tilapia - have enjoyed ground breaking advances in the past 12 months, with more expected in the year ahead. Sigurdur Olason, managing director of Marel Fish, said in advance of the forum: ‘While the main driver for higher levels of automation is the reduction in manpower available, particularly in Europe and North America.
‘But it’s the technology and innovation that delivers practical solutions to this challenge.’
Olason said a recent example of increased automation in the salmon industry is the installation of China’s first fully automatic processing line, at Shanghai Hi-Chain Foods’ salmon processing facility near Shanghai.
The plant produces up to 30 tonnes of salmon products a day and the Marel installation includes filleting, trimming, pinbone removal, skinning, portioning and slicing equipment.
‘Chinese processors have traditionally been known for a heavily hands-on approach to fish processing,’ explained Olason.
‘So this installation in China highlights the widespread signif- icance of automation in the global salmon industry.’
And as the cod industry looks to innovate and optimise the value chain, pinbone removal has been automated both on land and on sea, and the first Marel FleXicut pinbone removal and portioning systems have now been installed on freezing trawlers as part of a complete modernisation of onboard processing.
Marel’s most recent contribution to the revolution of cod processing is the addition of a new pre-trim solution and packing robots to the FleXicut system.
‘This means that pre-trim can be the last place the fish is touched by human hands,’ said Olason.
He said companies were increasingly prepared to invest in technology to compensate for a diminishing supply of labour.
‘In the South American tilapia industry, the desire to process larger volumes is also pushing automation.’
Advances in software contribute greatly to automation in food processing, and factories are becoming smarter as software becomes an even bigger part of the production process.
‘Interconnected software solutions now control and monitor the whole journey of fish from the sea to the supermarket,’ said Olason.
‘Furthermore, we are entering the next industrial revolution as Big Data and deep learning become an integral part of stateof-the-art, hi-tech production systems.
‘Artificial intelligence is an important factor and we also see that new product development moves at a much faster pace than before.
‘We welcome this era as we are committed to continuing our role as a pioneer in creating systems and solutions that allow food to be processed in an affordable and sustainable way.’
Exciting times We are entering the next industrial