SEAC AB, the Swedish fish processing machine manufacturer, has launched a new filleting machine for small trout, vendance and other similar fish including blue whiting, writes Andrew Martin.
Called SEAC-18, the versatile machine is based on the original VMK-10 filleting machine. However, it has a SEAC designed head and tail cutting table with a special infeed chute. Trout, weighing 200-600g, vendance and also defrosted blue whiting, have been tested in the machine with good results, claimed Ulf Grönqvist, president of SEAC.
“It’s not a brand new machine,” he said, “as we are using the VMK filleting module. But the design of the head and tailcut table and infeed chute into the filleting machine is our own brand – SEAC – and due to its simplicity, and that the filleting part is not brand new, gives the machine a price that is less than 50-75% of a brand new trout filleting machine. And still we give same one-year guarantee [as for a new machine]!”
Even though the filleting machine cannot be classed as ‘brand new’, the filleting part has been completely renovated/rebuilt, according to Grönqvist, and therefore can be regarded as being of the same standard as a new machine, he said.
The machine produces butterfly fillets as standard, but by adding a ‘single-fillet-device’, it can also produce single fillets. Up to 40 fish per minute can be filleted in the machine, which works as follows:
- A fish is placed on the table where a rotating knife removes both the head and the tail. The fish is then placed into the infeed chute and transported into and through the filleting machine’s different stations;
- The belly cut device where two horizontal knives cut through the belly to the anus. As an alternative one vertical knife can be used just to open the belly (this means higher yield but also that some trimming will be needed);
- Then, two vertically placed ‘double-cutting-knives’ cut along the backbone to the end of the fish;
- A cleaning wheel cleans the inside of the belly;
- At the filleting station, two specifically angle mounted knives, together with two sets of finger packages, cut out the back and rib-bones from the fish leaving a butterfly fillet held together at the back with the dorsal fin remaining on the fish. For a single fillet, an optional device is added where two vertical knives cut away the dorsal fin; and
- Finally, an outfeed chute transports the fish from the machine for further processing/packing.
“Priced at around $38,000 (€30,183), this machine must be of interest compared with Baader or other similar trout filleters,” Grönqvist said.
The SEAC 18 is one of the newly designed machines for processing pelagic species such as nobbing machines, filleting machines and automatic feeders that the company has been manufacturing since 2008. These machines all originated in the former Arenco/Norden company which was active in the 1940s-1980s, but are similar to today’s existing Baader and VMK machines, SEAC said.
However, SEAC AB also specialises in the rebuilding or renovation of former Arenco and VMK machines and claims to have more than 40 years experience of dealing with these machines.
