Yield is key to profitability. Just as in other areas of processing, cutting and deboning have a direct impact on yield and, in turn, quality. As such, more attention is being paid to this area of processing with different methods in play working to improve yield and quality.
One method processors are using to track yield is using some type of online yield measurement system. “I see a lot more companies having someone at the end of the line doing a scrape test on the carcasses and then reporting yield,” says Gary McMurray, chief of Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI) Food Processing Technology Division, Atlanta. “They are putting up monitors on the production floor that’s stating the average yield of each of the processing lines with the goal of driving yield. People are aware of how they are actually doing, and they are rewarding the processing lines that have the most yield.”