Meat + Poultry - February 2006 - 17

Sausage
smarts

Intelligent processing pays off
Today's processors no longer have the
luxury of making sausage the way it
used to be done. The knowledge of the
sausage maker, who in the past formulated mixes the low-tech way using his
senses, has been replaced in most cases
by hard-and-fast recipes, sophisticated
machines and ingredient technologies
established by mass producers of sausages. Speed, consistency and food
safety are the guiding principles of
modern processors and smarter methods of enhancing these factors are coveted.
Jon Trelfa, quality assurance manager
with Kayem Foods, Inc., Chelsea, Mass.,
says smart sausage processing is crucial
to his company, which produces more
than 500 products, including fresh and
cooked sausage. The family owned company is the largest manufacturer of hot
dogs in New England and has distribution in more than 30 states. Kayem is best
known for its Kayem Old Tyme Franks,
and its al fresco All Natural Chicken
Sausage, a gourmet-style sausage sold
mostly in the retail segment.
Like Kayem, a growing number of
companies are adding gourmet sausages to their offerings, most of which
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require a more coarse grind of meat to
enhance the taste and aesthetics of the
products. Adding a new sausage product requires processing intelligence on
several levels. For example, attaining
the more coarse grind eliminates one
step from the process. While emulsion for hot dogs might be processed
through a 1.2 mm plate, sausage grinds
are up to ¼ inch and sometimes kidney
plates are used to produce even larger
chunks of meat. "The larger opening
also can allow significant bone fragments or other foreign objects to get in
the mixture," says Trelfa. "There has to
be a lot of diligence at the raw material
end in terms of monitoring your raw
material suppliers."
Companies like Kayem test and sample raw materials for food safety issues
and to ensure quality specifications are
met. Core samples are taken from each
shipment and tested for fat content and
microbial counts as well as randomly
checking for bone content. "We put a
lot of the onus back on the supplier,"
says Trelfa. "If we find pieces of bone,
we're going to issue warnings, we are
going to ask for money back and we're
going to penalize the company. We will

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By Joel Crews
meat&poultry@sosland.com

do what has to be done to get something in here that is safe to put through
this grind process."
As a processor of sausage and hot
dogs since 1909, one of the biggest
advances Kayem has benefited from
is in automation. The industry has
seen sausage-making equipment facilitate more hands-off processing,
and machines are now easier to disassemble for frequent cleaning. Trelfa
says automation has been adopted
from the grinding and mixing end of
the process to the cooking, de-linking and packaging areas.
"These are things that used to be
done by hand, often using knives,"
Trelfa says. Especially in a sausage
processing plant where ingredients are
numerous, easy-to-clean equipment is
critical. At Kayem, where production
schedules must accommodate manufacturing hundreds of products under
eight brand names, cleanable machines
are a required feature. "They can be
washed down and sanitized in the middle of production and made ready for
your second shift if needed," he says.
As for specific equipment, bigger
is better for mass-producing sausage.
Blenders, for example, have gotten
easier to clean, because they are larger.
"Instead of a 400-pound or 500-pound
paddle mixer, we're using ribbon blenders that can hold up to 10,000 pounds.
This equipment is bigger, faster and
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Meat + Poultry - February 2006

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