“Your knives are your paintbrush, your sculpting tool,” says Kari Underly, principal, Range Meat Academy, based in Chicago. Their medium may be different, but butchers also use handheld tools like artists to bring shape to an undefined surface. 

Maximizing yield in the processing of meat and poultry is crucial for boosting operator revenues. While such factors as the amount of external carcass fat, carcass muscularity and aging all affect yield, mastering superior cutting equipment and techniques is crucial for getting the most product from an animal, analysts say.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought its own set of challenges to whole-muscle processing.

The need for automation and robotics in cutting and deboning is becoming more necessary with labor challenges, but it is not as prevalent yet as the old adage “yields pay for labor.”

While the meat processing system relies heavily on worker skill, meat and poultry processors are looking at automation to help eliminate repetitive worker motions and reduce work-related injuries.

Poultry, pork and beef processors are experimenting today with more automation and robotics in cutting and deboning operations, which will, they hope, lead to increased speed, efficiencies, worker safety and food safety.