Gainesville, GA. -- Driven by growing retail and foodservice demand for precisely weighted meat products, U.S. poultry processors are scrambling to convert their operations from random weight packing to net weight portioning.

Major U.S. suppliers are looking to install highly sophisticated equipment that can quickly and automatically weigh chicken parts, separate them into the desired combinations and pack them into pre-determined tray sizes, with little handling by workers throughout the process, while minimizing giveaway.

The U.S. poultry industry is adopting this innovation that has been embraced by European countries for years. So it’s no surprise that many American processors are looking toward European firms with much more experience in installing state-of-the-art equipment to size, grade and batch poultry.

In this extremely technical area, where fractions of an ounce can mean millions of dollars lost or saved, Denmark-based Scanvaegt International stands above the rest of the competition in terms of accuracy, efficiency, reliability and, most important, low giveaway.

With its patented DreamBatcher system, Scanvaegt consistently achieves a giveaway rate as low as 2 percent — and more often, as little as less than 1 percent. Other automated net-weight systems have giveaway as high as 6 percent, and manually filling fixed-weight trays can result in giveaway of 10 percent or more.

Scanvaegt’s results were witnessed firsthand by this journalist during a visit in June to the Scanvaegt U.S. headquarters in Gainesville, GA. A Notary Public was also present for the demonstration and officially certified the results.

For the trial run, two types of trays were packed: a 1.65-lb tray of breast filets and a 2-lb tray of drumsticks. The target weight in grams for the breast filets was 748.42 g and 907.18 g for the drumsticks. Using fresh chicken parts from a local supplier, the DreamBatcher filled 50 trays each of the breast and drumstick trays, which were then individually weighed in the presence of the auditor/Notary Public.

On average, the DreamBatcher produced a tray of breast filets weighing 754.34 g, a difference of only 5.91 g from the target weight. Thus, the giveaway for the breasts came to just 0.783 percent. Results were very similar with the drumsticks, with an average weight of 912.84 g and a giveaway of 0.643 percent.

“Each extra bit of poultry that is put into the tray means a loss of profits for the processor,” said Lars Grundtvig, the third-generation chairman of Scanvaegt International. “That’s why Scanvaegt has applied vast resources into developing its DreamBatcher system to operate within the lowest possible giveaway, thus improving our customers profit and strengthen their competitiveness.

“We’re in the measurement business,” Grundtvig added. “We invented the world’s first net-weight portioning equipment in 1978. Since then our aim has been to reduce give-away and improve reliability and quality. That’s probably why we have supplied more portioning equipment than all of our competitors put together.” NP

This article, written by Mr. Phat X. Chiem, a freelance business reporter, has been shortened from its original version to better fit this issue. Should you want to receive a copy of the full length article together with a copy of the Notary Public report - please contact Scanvaegt US, Inc. – Thomas Holm (VP Sales – Poultry) phone: (866) 365 0724, or email tholm@scanvaegt-us.com