A modified hot processing strategy for beef: reduced electrical energy consumption in carcass chilling

A beef processing strategy for improving energy and labour efficiencies, modified hot processing (MHP), was developed in a research abattoir. The work reported herein investigated carcass chilling rates and electrical energy usage in the chilling of carcasses that were processed using this approach. The MHP procedure removes the lower value cuts from the dressed carcass along with associated bone and fat. The remaining high value meat (posterior carcass quarter) is chilled in the usual manner, while the low value cuts are immediately processed (e.g. reduced into pre-blended, salted, chilled meat for emulsion-type products; rendered; directly processed as fresh, hot-boned meat, etc.). Carcasses prepared by the MHP method were dissected to quantify the amounts of lean meat, separable fat and bone removed in the procedure. These data were used with a simple model to predict the amount of chilling energy that could be saved by applying MHP prior to chilling. Electrical power to operate a blast chilling facility containing carcasses that had been processed either by conventional processing or by MHP methods was monitored and recorded, and the resulting data was used to confirm the model result. The MHP procedure reduced the refrigeration load for beef chilling by as much as 51% (P < 0·05). The amount of chilling energy to be saved would depend upon the methods employed to further process the low value tissues, and was calculated to be no less than 7%. The time for the reduced MHP carcass quarters to chill to 10°C at the fat-muscle interface of the longissimus dorsi muscle (12/13 rib) was shorter for MHP carcasses than for conventional carcasses (5·77 h vs 7·08 h, respectively) (P < 0·05). However, the times to chill the deep hip location of MHP hind quarters and conventional beef sides were not significantly different (P < 0·05).