Sea bass and sea bream are excellent table fish, but many modern kitchens consider their preparation time consuming. In addition, until recently it had been virtually impossible for restaurants, caterers and supermarkets to find these species size-graded and portioned – frozen or fresh.
This is changing as Marel has developed a new processing line concept for farmed sea bass and sea bream – a line that incorporates double functionality: whole fish grading and packing, as well as filleting lines for fresh and IQF frozen pieces. Both capabilities include 100% traceability from catch to packing.
Whole fish processing
When raw material arrives at the plant, marked with date and location of harvest, it is weighed on an M2200 scale and automatically registered in Marel's MPS production software system. Each container of fish is assigned an identity number, which includes information such as species, date, harvesting location, etc. A printed label is automatically inserted into the box. This label is scanned before fish is transported to a high-speed grading unit.
The grader batches the product according to pre-defined parameters for packing into boxes. Here, the system can be programmed to remove predefined sizes that are transported to filleting. The raw material grader is equipped with special infeed to maximise throughput, and can also be used with intelligent batching to minimise overweight in each pack. A final label is then included in the packs to ensure 100% traceability.
Filleting
The fish is first size-graded and weighed before entering a descaler, weighed again before deheading and then sent to automatic filleting. All yield points on the fillet are measured, which is collected and registered by Marel MPS software. This data can then be accessed in real-time by managers, who monitor and control operations and performance by individual operators.
Grading
After filleting, the fish is fully trimmed and sent to a Dantech individual quick freezer (IQF) to maximise product quality. Only a few minutes have elapsed from the time the raw material enters the processing line until it is frozen. After freezing the fillets are individually graded on a Marel high speed IQF grader, packed and boxed with labels containing all of necessary information.
When the product is ready for shipment – either frozen or fresh fillets or fresh whole fish – the pallets and boxes are scanned out of the MPS final stock inventory via a wireless scanning system to ensure full traceability.
