Five years ago, Swedish fish processing machine manufacturer SEAC AB decided to move from the renovation of ‘old’ Arenco and VMK machines to designing its own new brand – SEAC FPM machines for very small fish. SEAC owner Ulf Groenqvist talks to WF&A about the results seen so far.
SEAC FPM-200
SEAC has delivered 25 SEAC FPM-200 nobbing machines for smaller sardines to the Philippines over the last year and a half, along with 17 more to Croatia, Poland, Russia and the USA.
Production results have found that due to the special technique with mechanical gutting operation, the yield is up to 15% higher than on similar two-knife-vacuum-cutting machines, and the accuracy in cleaning has been as high as 99%.
To explain the ‘unique’ technique of mechanical gutting operation, Mr Groenqvist says, “From the knowledge that the fish thickness and length of the head of the fish are proportional, a specific head measuring device is measuring each fish individually and sets a movable nose stop so the fish head is cut very close to the gill fin, saving a lot of meat (higher yield) in the operation.”
He says that the mechanical gutting operation has also proved that softer, defrosted and fish with belly cracking are more easy to process in a SEAC FPM-200 than in other vacuum gutting machines.
SEAC FPM-400
Thirteen SEAC FPM-400 nobbing and filleting machines for smaller fish have been delivered to countries including Sweden, Croatia, Latvia, Estonia, Peru and Portugal.
With this machine a filleting unit (SEAC FPM-350) is added, along with a transfer station to the FPM-200, to form a high capacity and high yield nobbing and filleting machine for smaller fish.
“It is very easy to change from H&G+T to fillets – just a plate is needed and it takes normally only some minutes,” said Mr Groenqvist.
“The SEAC-350 machine is similar to the filleting part of the former Arenco SFD-300, but with changed material in accordance with today’s demand. Due to the design this machine is also very well suited to even fillet defrosted fish, and during November one machine was installed in Peru filleting 60-80 pcs/kilo of defrosted anchovy.”
Recently another FPM-400 was installed for Guldhaven Pelagiska AB in north Sweden filleting vendance (siklöja), a special high value fish in north Sweden and Finland. Mr Groenqvist says that the result here was even better than expected.
In Latvia the machines work on Baltic herring and in Croatia it works on smaller sardines. In Portugal it works on sardines 8-20 fish/kilo.
“The SEAC FPM-400 works similar to other machines on the market - belly opening by two horizontal knives; gutting wheel cleaning the fish; and a filleting station where two special angle set filleting knives that (together with some pressing fingers) mean that the belly-bone and the backbone is cut away and a butterfly fillet is the end result”, said Mr Groenqvist.
AB SEAC
Seafood Processing Global, 26-28 April 2016, Brussels, Belgium
Hall 4 Stand 5842
