Erie Meat Products Ltd. of Mississaugua, ON, is a regional supplier of fresh poultry and wholesale mechanically deboned chicken. Depending on market conditions, nearly 25 percent of its mechanically deboned (MDM) product is frozen for export out of the country.
"Although we were achieving minimum re-quirements for product quality according the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, freezing product to the required temperature was very costly and took up a lot of storage space," reports John Myshrall, quality assurance and HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) manager. "We wanted to chill the meat down at a faster rate to reduce our energy costs. We also needed to find a better process for handling meat after the deboning system when providing local customers with fresh product." To achieve both results, Erie recently reconfigured and modified its MDM line.