Meat + Poultry - February 2006 - 18

SMARTER
SAUSAGE PROCESSING
easier to clean," says Trelfa.
Ingredient delivery is another area
automation is making sausage production more foolproof. Pumping systems
delivering liquids (such as water or
corn syrup) to the blenders ensure temperatures and amounts are consistent,
says Trelfa. "This way we don't have
to haul them in buckets and manually
dump them in blenders," he adds.
Processors are also benefiting from inline adjusting of equipment to ensure formulas stay within predetermined thresholds. In-line fat analyzers, for example,
ensure fat content stays within 1 percent
to 2 percent of a target. "If your fat starts
to fall low, the system will automatically
kick on and pump in a more fatty meat.
If the fat content goes too high another
pump is activated to pump in more lean
meat to bring the mixture back," Trelfa
says. "It's definitely a smarter way to
make sausage."
Sausage processors have benefited
significantly by including sodium diacetate and sodium lactate in their
formulas. Trelfa says these ingredients
have become especially popular in the
past five years because of their ability
to hinder the growth of bacteria during
processing and in reducing bacteria
counts throughout the shelf life of the
products. The formula advances also
have benefits across other categories.
"I'm constantly running tests on different products (using diacetate and lactate), currently in the ham category."
The challenge for processors comes
in using the ingredients to optimize
food safety benefits without tainting
the taste of products. "In the formula
end of sausage making, the ability to
utilize antimicrobial ingredients correctly means using them within the levels allowed by the government without
changing the profile of your product."
Teaching intelligence
Continuous training has always been
important at all levels of meat and
poultry processing. Smarter sausage
processing begins with the development of smarter workers. Trelfa says
the importance of training was reiter-

ated after the infamous Bil Mar Foods and providing products the larger comListeria-related recall in the late '90s. panies can't.
He points out how the
As part of the
U.S. Dept. of Agriuniversity's departculture has since recment of animal and
ognized sausage and
veterinary sciences,
hot dogs as two of the
Richard's students are
most at-risk products
taught the techniques
for Listeria contamiof
manufacturing
nation. This served
products ranging from
as a wake-up call to
wet sausage to salami
sausage makers who
and include noncured,
now have a vested
nonsmoked sausage
interest in making
products, which total
training a key part
about 25,000 pounds
of their overall food
of product each year.
John Trelfa
safety program.
Richard says pro"Training and retraining in the world cessors have seen equipment evolve from
of ready-to-eat meats is an amazingly no-tech to sophisticated, task-specific inimportant part of the process," he says. struments in a relatively short amount of
Teaching line workers when and how to time.
correctly stop the processing line if they
We have evolved quickly to adopting
see a food safety problem is one way better equipment like bowl choppers
progressive companies ensure account- and vacuum stuffers that do automatic
ability from formulation to packaging.
linking and portion control," he says.
Trelfa says Kayem would likely still Other tools of the trade have also made
employ these types of training with- sausage making a more predictable and
out the governmental push, although it repeatable process, including betterlikely would not be as aggressive. The designed, computer-controlled smokesame holds true of the ingredients used houses. However, he says, processors
to prevent Listeria. "Formulation-wise, with the biggest budgets, newest equipwe definitely wouldn't play around ment and latest facilities don't neceswith something costing almost 9 cents sarily have the smartest operations.
per pound to put into our product if
"The bigger companies can make
we didn't know that it helped us in the it faster and at higher volumes for a
battle against this type of bacteria that cheaper price, but the small guys can
has the potential to kill."
develop a niche using better-quality
"Training and empowering employ- ingredients giving them a signature flaees to know what to do and how to do vor and texture profile," Richard says.
it is essential," Trelfa says. "Everyone "They could make a sausage that is a
knows the devil is in the details, and lot like the big companies' but their
when you're dealing with ubiquitous survival is in making the niche prodbacteria, you have to pay attention to uct with a unique flavor. They want to
those details."
know, 'How can I be different?'"
Accounting for flavor
According to Ron Richard, manager
of Vandal Brand Meats and supervisor
of the meat lab at the Univ. of Idaho,
Moscow, the details of providing a
unique tasting sausage is the focus of
small- and medium-size sausage processors. Smarter, for those companies,
means focusing on quality ingredients

Making a case for innovation
Bruce Armstrong, R&D manager for
Kerry Ingredients, Brookfield, Wis.,
says one way for large-scale processors
to be different is in the type of casing
they use.
The development of synthetic casings facilitates sausage processing in
a more intelligent manner by limiting

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