Monitoring Meat Texture To Optimize Slicing Yield And Reduce Wasted Meat In High-Speed Slicing Lines

Project Information

SliceWatch

Grant agreement ID: 651964

DOI

10.3030/651964

Project closed

EC signature date 19 September 2014

Start date 1 September 2014

End date 31 January 2015

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

LENZ INSTRUMENTS SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SliceWatch (Monitoring Meat Texture To Optimize Slicing Yield And Reduce Wasted Meat In High-Speed Slicing Lines)

Reporting period: 2014-09-01 to 2015-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SLICEWATCH project aims at establishing the technical and commercial feasibility of a new technology for industries producing sliced meat products. SLICEWATCH is based on an in-line inspection technology that allows assessing meat texture. We have obtained a national patent (PCT pending) protecting both the proposed method, and different possible implementations.
Meat texture is an important technological parameters for meat processors, since the presence of soft-textured meat often results in problems during slicing operation. Soft-textured meat is responsible for substantial economic losses related to wasted and discarded meat, as well as to stoppages of the production lines.
Through this “Phase I” project, we aimed at assessing the feasibility of SliceWatch by (1) developing a Business plan, and (2) carrying out a technical feasibility study in collaboration with end-user meat processors.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the context of SLICEWATCH project, we have completed the following tasks:
• Performance of a market survey among meat processors producing sliced products, aiming at identifying key target markets, and the functional specifications for SLICEWATCH technology
• Elaboration of a business plan covering strategic, marketing and financial aspects related to the commercial exploitation of SLICEWATCH technology
• A technical feasibility study based on a set of trials carried out at the facilities of meat processors
As a main outcome of this work, we have confirmed the economic and technical feasibility of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We aim at further developing SliceWatch technology to bring the technology into a commercial stage. Meat processors will benefit from an important reduction in the amount of discarded meat annually, which is estimated in 1000t of meat, annually, after 5 years of penetration of SliceWatch technology.

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