Marel has sold two of its newly launched FleXicut to Icelandic company Vísir hf.
The contract was signed on the first day of the Seafood Processing Europe Exhibition in Brussels, Belgium, last week.
Marel describes the FleXicut as the centerpiece of the next generation in whitefish processing being introduced by the company. The machine incorporates two critical processing steps in one machine: precisely locating the pinbones and then cutting the fillet to remove them and portion the fish to customer specifications, either skin-on or skin-off.
The first FleXicut will be installed at Vísir in May, and the second machine later this year. However, Vísir has been running FleXicut as part of a development agreement since February. With FleXicut, Marel says it is bringing hi-tech to the heart of the fish processing factory and this will influence the entire process.
“This is one of the biggest steps towards automation that we’ve seen for a very long time in fish processing technology”, said Pétur Pálsson, CEO of Vísir.
The automation of pinbone removal not only reduces the need for skilled labour but also increases throughput and greatly improves overall yield and quality. Additional benefits of FleXicut include greater product diversity and a neat footprint that makes it easy to integrate into most existing factory layouts.
“We’re definitely seeing that the variety in products that we can produce, and having uniform product every time, are great benefits,” said Mr Pálsson.
