The Duravant family of operating companies serve the food processing, packaging and material handling segments.

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success story

Fieldale Farms – Murrayville

Fieldale Farms decided to add three more systems, giving them a total of four high-speed ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboners.

Foodmate Equipment

Four (4)  ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboner

Scope

Fieldale was asked by one of their key customers, to develop new dark meat deboning, marination and packaging process. To meet the requirements and quality set forth by the customer, Fieldale decided to expand their facility by 40,000 sf. Based on the success of the initial ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboner, the plant decided to add three more systems, giving them a total of four high-speed ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboners. After whole leg is deboned on the ULTiMATE, the deboned dark meat is then marinated, bagged, weighed and placed in an in- line box-making process. The cases are then robotically stacked, palletized and wrapped with new state of the art equipment.

OBJECTIVE

Fieldale’s need to expand their leg deboning operation to accommodate their clients’ demands came with some challenges. With a tight labor market, it had been increasingly difficult to meet their weekly production goals. Their primary objectives were to reduce labor and increase yields. To achieve these goals, highly automated equipment was a necessity.

Having had previous experiences collaborating with the Foodmate US team, Fieldale approached Foodmate when the Cornelia plant was looking at thigh deboning solutions. The success of the thigh deboners led to the order of three (3) Flex Cut-up Systems. So, when Fieldale started to look for an efficient whole leg deboning strategy, it was only natural that Fieldale approached Foodmate for a solution, and Foodmate had the “ULTiMATE” answer! While still in its final stages of R&D, Foodmate installed the ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboner at Fieldale’s Murrayville processing facility; they were the first plant ever to test the ULTiMATE.

The testing period lasted about 12 weeks, and the results convinced the Fieldale team that the machine would be a significant improvement over their current process and help with their challenges in labor, quality, consistency, and yield. After an extensive testing experience, the plant proceeded with the purchasing of the system, along with an additional three ULTiMATE Whole Leg Deboning Systems. The three other machines were installed once Fieldale’s planned building expansion was completed, in August 2018.

Results

Labor and yield improvements have both succeeded our expectations. Fieldale management was pleased to discover that their return on investment is exceeding all the goals. “We particularly like the X-Ray and auto adjustment on shackle features, it is very unique, it gives the ability to treat each whole leg individually, we had never been able to do that before with any system”, stated David Rackley, Plant Manager.

The combination of X-Ray technology and shackle height adjustment allows the blades to cut precisely around the kneecap and the knee joint, ensuring high yield and cartilage-free meat.

The meat is efficiently scraped from the bone to ensure maximum yield and high quality leg meat; keeping labor to a minimum.
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