Chicken nuggets are among the most popular foods in the world. Globally, tens of billions of nuggets are sold by McDonald’s every year. In the US, frozen chicken nugget sales alone reached $1.1 billion by mid-2023, an 18% increase over the previous year. Within this rise is another emerging trend — a growing demand for “prime” whole chicken breast nuggets, as opposed to formed products.

However, the demand for premium nuggets highlights a significant issue within the poultry processing industry, specifically the widespread practice of using a large workforce to manually inspect and separate portioned chicken breast for nuggets from lower value ‘trim.” This is a costly and inconsistent process that can result in 25% to 35% loss of high-value nuggets.

For high volume processors, this can equate to a loss of revenue that can run to millions annually. In addition, poultry processors face challenges due to the workforce demands, including high turnover, absenteeism, subjectivity in sorting, and rising costs.

Given the potential losses coupled with increasing demand, poultry processors are turning to high speed, automated sorting systems that singulate, or separate, each piece of chicken so it can be scanned by advanced proprietary vision systems. Nuggets that meet the processor’s specifications in size and shape are then sorted into bins or totes.

The process, which is now enhanced by faster and more accurate AI identification of “prime” nuggets, can sort at speeds of 4,200 pounds per hour and recover most of the lost high-value nuggets currently lost to trim.

Inefficiency in manual sorting

To create a nugget, poultry processors use portioning equipment to cut chicken breast into strips, cutlets, or nuggets of specific size, weight, and shape. Plant workers then visually inspect and manually sort the nuggets, or remaining trim from breaking down the chicken, as the pieces move on a conveyor. The nuggets are evaluated and sorted and those that make the grade are separated into bins or totes. The remaining trim is sold at a much lower price per pound – roughly half – as a protein or for use in other processed foods.  

“The current process involves people inspecting a ‘sea’ of nuggets. They are asked to assess the size and shape, which is nearly impossible given that the nuggets are pressed up against each other, while also looking for any blood spots or excess fat,” says James Lapeyre, general manager of Laitram Machinery, a global supplier of food processing solutions.

According to Lapeyre, consistent and objective assessment of nuggets can be hindered by personal bias, subjectivity, fatigue, and even boredom. Moreover, poultry processors experience very high turnover and absenteeism rates. By reducing labor requirements, a company can eliminate persistent employee turnover, and the costs related to training and onboarding new staff.

Considering the challenges, automating the inspection and sorting of nuggets from trim appears logical. However, there are currently few systems developed for this purpose.

With 75 years of experience in shrimp processing and grading equipment, Laitram Machinery identified similarities in the technological requirements, specifically the need to separate and scan each item at high speed. Intrigued by the possibilities, Laitram’s R&D team initiated a project to create a high-speed nugget sorting system several years ago. 

The result is the SMART Sorter, a patented, fully automated sorter that separates the nuggets and then utilizes high-precision laser imaging and computer vision algorithms to inspect and sort each piece to the processor’s size, shape, and weight specifications. 

“We developed a method of singulation at very high speeds that enables us to visually inspect each nugget. By doing that, we get a near-perfect understanding of its size and shape, and can recover more prime nuggets,” Lapeyre said. 

Laitram introduced the system at IPPE 2025 in Atlanta.

Designed to increase in prime nuggets upgraded from trim, the system can identify 20% to 40% more nuggets that originally were not being identified in manual sorting.

As for labor, the SMART Sorter decreases labor requirements and costs by more than 50%, compared to manual processing and sorting. “Now workers only need to look for blood spots or excess fat, a much simpler task,” Lapeyre said.

Laitram Machinery recently integrated Artificial Intelligence to almost double throughput rates to 6,500 to 7,000 pounds of nuggets per hour. AI also enhances clump and defect detection, minimizing the risk of “out-of-spec” nuggets reaching customers and further boosting recovery rates.

Lapeyre said AI can identify patterns without additional programming. “Over time, the system continues to learn the attributes of a ‘good’ nugget and visually recognize it. We can also train the system to recognize when there is a clump [two or three potentially good nuggets touching] and how to handle that. In the past, that might have ended up as trim.”

The SMART Sorter is designed to enhance nugget quality, achieving 99% accuracy within specified weight and shape parameters. This precision is crucial, as the retail, foodservice and quick-service restaurant sectors frequently require nuggets in diverse sizes and weights. Additionally, chicken strips, also crafted from whole chicken breast, are highly popular and often required in specific dimensions. 

"We believe this technology will become the obvious and only method for producing consistently high-quality nuggets. It will increase the supply of prime nuggets by a significant amount and do it at the price of trim,” Lapeyre said.

Source:  Laitram Machinery