Skinning machines are an essential part of handling and preparing fish, poultry and meat for producers, retailers and restaurants. Skinning machinery is able to handle multiple tasks with efficiency and accuracy and to ensure minimal wastage of high value meat and fish flesh.
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What should a skinning machine do?
Skinning machines should meet the high safety and hygiene standards required for food preparation, and to deliver food prepared to meet the expectations of retail customers. To do so, the machinery needs to provide:
- efficient removal of skin, membrane and rind
- high meat yields
- removal of fragments of skin, bone, membrane and rind
- high levels of hygiene and ease of cleaning
- low maintenance requirements
- reliable output
- strict compliance with safety standards
By improving yields and efficiency, skinning machinery can improve return on investment, and improve consumer appeal through clean and attractive product preparation.
What are the types of skinning machines?
Skinning machines are designed to thoroughly remove skin or rind from lamb, beef, pork, poultry and other meats, and from multiple shapes and sizes of fish.
Machines are available which can handle multiple meat products including various cuts of beef lamb and pork as well as chicken, turkey and duck. There are also specialist machines which are designed to handle specific types of meat or fish.
In terms of size and output, there are portable table top machines and high volume industrial machines, including castor-mounted equipment for ease of movement. The machinery can be automatic, semi-automatic or manual, depending on the type of controls included. Skinning widths can range from the relatively small to larger widths for larger cuts. Adjustable blade settings also allow for different thicknesses of skin and rind to be removed
Skinning machines may also remove membrane and may be set up alongside deboning and descaling machinery.
What are the components of skinning machines?
Skinning machines components are generally made of stainless steel and food grade plastics, reflecting the importance of hygiene and ease of cleaning in the food industry.
Skinning machinery usually features a conveyor belt to transport the unskinned meat or fish with a pressure unit to feed the product to the blade. Some machines are designed for manual handling of, for example, a leg of pork, with the joint manually rotated against the blade until the required amount of rind is skinned.
The blade is housed in a blade holder, and the processed product is taken by a roller or conveyor belt to an output tray. The design of the machinery will generally feature large, smooth surfaces for ease of cleaning. Good design includes easy removal of parts for cleaning, especially conveyor belts, pressure rollers, blade, blade holder and output table. For the highest levels of efficiency, some machinery includes built-in compressed air cleaning systems.
SKINNING MACHINERY
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