WHIZARD®  TRIMVAC™  DRAMATICALLY  IMPROVES  WHITE  MEAT  RECOVERY  IN  HIGH-VOLUME  CHICKEN  PROCESSING

Atlanta, Ga., January 26, 2011 – Bettcher Industries introduces the Whizard® TrimVac™ for chicken processing.  This remarkable tool enables processors to recover more white meat yield than ever before in high-volume poultry processing activities.

The TrimVac™ system makes it easy to harvest sub-tender white meat from beneath the wishbone, along with “eye” muscle lean meat that anchors the breast muscle to the breast frame as well as lean meat along the rib, keel and back.  Up until now, these were areas of the bird where it has been difficult or impossible to harvest a significant amount of high-value white meat.

In many processing plants, chicken frames are processed on a cone line where trimming is highly difficult because there hasn’t been an easy, effective way to capture the trim yield.  Valuable meat has been sacrificed in mechanical deboning machinery where the product is classified as MSC (mechanically separated chicken) and carries a very low price.

In response, Bettcher Industries combined its highly effective Whizard® Trimmer technology with its proprietary, proven vacuum technology that has also been used to control BSE risk material by hygienically removing spinal cord tissue in beef and pork processing applications.  With TrimVac™, the entire trimming and vacuuming process is simple and sanitary.

The TrimVac™ works like this:  The lightweight, tool uses a high-speed rotating blade to dislodge, cut and vacuum white meat in the sub-tender area and under the wishbone.  A highly effective vacuum system removes the breast trim and conveys it to a special stainless steel containment tank.  All trimmed meat is hygienically conveyed so that it doesn’t come into contact with line operators, work surfaces or the processing floor.

Processing plants that adopt the TrimVac^™ tool for white meat recovery experience impressive yield improvements.  It is common to achieve a 0.50 - 0.75 oz. increase in yield on an 8 lb. bird – from the breast sub-tender area alone.   In addition to capturing the sub-tenders, collecting other breast trim will increase yields further.