“There is a lot going on in Marel’s ‘innovation factory’,” says Stella Björg Kristinsdóttir, the company’s fish industry marketing manager. And much of this innovation will be on show at the processing exhibitions soon taking place in Boston and Brussels, she adds.
However, the fish processing exhibition season kicked off for Marel when it held its 11th annual Salmon Showhow in Nørresundby, Denmark, at the beginning of last month. As the name suggests, this exhibition is specifically designed to show off systems and equipment for the processing of salmon, both farmed and wild.
More than 200 executives representing 93 companies from 23 countries attended the event. They gathered in the 500m2 showroom at Marel’s Salmon Division facility to watch live demonstrations and discuss the latest technological developments in the industry with Marel personnel.
“At the Salmon Showhow we always try to give our customers good insight into our broad range of salmon processing equipment, both as integrated systems as well as standalone applications,” Stella Björg Kristinsdóttir says . “Our showroom this year again was packed with machines – both new and proven solutions.”
One of the main attractions of the show was the demonstration of the latest Marel salmon filleting machine MS 2730 in-line with a brand new version of Marel‘s ITM (intelligent trimming machine). The MS 2730 has a throughput of up to 25 fish per minute, and since its introduction last year has been improved to gain optimum performance for both pre-rigor and post-rigor fish.
The ITM has been designed to trim salmon fillets automatically into pre-defined shapes and will grade them by weight and colour as well. With the filleting and trimming integrated in-line, processors are offered a new dimension of managing yields and production value, the company claims.
Marel also launched the latest member of Marel Key technology, the M6215 food industry workstation, at the show. This is a touch-screen display/indicator designed for use on all Marel equipment, and was developed for reporting, quality checks, data collection and control.
M6215, which runs on Windows 7 and has a 60 GB Solid State disk, was displayed on an Innova packing station, as well as a quality control station in the wet area of the demonstration centre. The workstation is available with an optional MU1 internal W&M approved weighing module that connects directly to all Marel platforms. In some cases it eliminates the need for external weighing terminals thus making packing and QC stations smaller and more compact.
Marel also demonstrated an advanced in-line portioning and packing system. This will portion and then load fixed weight salmon portions into trays with high speed and accuracy, claims the company. “With our accurate and intelligent PortionCutter for salmon, the fillets will be cut in perfect length and weight,” a spokesman says. “After the portioncutter, the pick and place robot locates the portions and will gently pick them up and place them in trays.”
Also on display was a range of slicing applications, the newest of which comes integrated with Marel’s Innova production management software.
A new feature at this year’s Salmon Showhow was the arrangement of networking opportunities for participants in the show’s auditorium, or by prior arrangement online.
