Bacon has always been a best seller, but with continued growth in all areas of retail, food service, institutional, private label, and co-packaging, as well as overall sales growth, this pandemic has once again exploded the number of this category to nearly a record s level.

Scott Steinman, a Reiser application specialist based in Canton, Massachusetts, said that bacon is increasingly becoming a staple in diets, menus, and consumer requirements. It is almost considered as a condiment for all food groups. It is used in a variety of ways for main dish protein, or as an additive to other proteins, including bacon-wrapped meat, salad and vegetable seasonings, pizza toppings, desserts, etc.

Steinman said: "The expansion of the taste is from traditional brown sugar with pepper, apple cinnamon, maple, jalapeno, barbecue, to bourbon, whiskey, coffee and chocolate/mocha coffee and other alcoholic products. Increase the appeal," Steinman said. "Then you have an extended series of wood smoky flavors of pecan, hardwood, mesquite and apple, cherry, maple, and pecan wood to get more flavor."

Jason Jordan, an application specialist at Fusion Tech Integrated in Roseville, Illinois, pointed out that in such a high-demand solid injection equipment, bacon that meets the needs of processors and their customers is essential.

"There are many good equipment on the market, including ours, and I think one of the biggest opportunities for equipment manufacturers is to understand the limitations of the bacon injection system and make sure we design the right equipment for the job," he said. "In the United States, we have green weight legislation, which means that the weight of the finished product cannot exceed the weight of fresh uncured pork belly, so in most cases, we injected 11% to 13%."

Therefore, the equipment must have a filtration system, pump, and needle configuration that can handle high concentrations of substances.

Nicholas Brown, an application expert in Mundelein Precipak, Illinois, points out that the latest trend in injection is to have more thorough saline distribution to accelerate curing before heat treatment, and to relax the muscles by tumbling the abdomen to help saline distribution.

"Our industrial syringes are servo-driven, which helps to make our syringes more versatile," he said. "The servo drive does not require our syringes to perform a complete injection stroke like a direct drive system. This helps to increase output, allows for tailored strokes for the injected product, and can be changed through a simple touch screen program."

Henrik Thrysoe, GEA Edge Product Manager, based in Düsseldorf, Germany, points out that a recent trend is to improve product quality and consistency by avoiding pickling bags and film/fat bursts, thereby increasing the final slice yield.

"The trend is to improve or build existing capacity on a highly inferred footprint," he said. "A typical bacon pickling production line runs 12 to 15 abdomens per minute, and we increased it to 22 to 25 abdomens per minute, depending on the size and weight range. This means that a factory running four production lines can now achieve The same overall capacity as the two GEA bacon pickling production lines."

Like many processes, processors require a higher degree of automation and uninterrupted continuous production. This means less work, less interaction and fewer tasks and fewer requirements throughout the process. As consumption and demand continue to increase, equipment manufacturers must provide better solutions to meet these trends.

"Our customers requested improvements to the filtration system to prevent clogging of the needles and reduce deviations that could change the decline in production that could affect consistency and profit," Steinman said. "They want the last hour of production to be as consistent as the first hour of production."

In Reiser, the company provides Fomaco Injectors and Brine Making Systems, various systems to match the output of all bacon manufacturers.

"Our product range can range from small batches to high-volume industrial production lines," Steinman said. "We have the ability to integrate technology for automated production lines and minimize production line personnel to reduce employee interaction and dependence."

There are several projects that make Fomaco unique: the first is its filtration system. The continuous belt filter is the first step in the pre-filtering process and can clean the most debris. It eliminates any interaction between the staff and cleaning the saddle tank.

"It is completely automatic and continuous, so the processor does not have to rely on any personnel to disassemble the filters, in-line filters and drums that must be cleaned regularly or cause production interruptions," Steinman said. "You also have to pay someone, and they have to pay in a consistent and timely manner to avoid a drop in yield. This eliminates this work and responsibility and is more consistent."

The Fomaco syringe also has a secondary filter-FM 80 self-cleaning filter-a 500-micron filter basket with a rotating compression scraper, which automatically runs and filters out smaller particles in the salt water and enters the needle when the salt water enters the needle. Remove the debris before.

"Next, we use the stripper foot to activate the brine when it comes in contact with the product," Steinman said. "The stripping block helps to control the needle pattern in the product to get a consistent yield when it is indexed through the syringe. The blocks are pneumatic so they can be adjusted to the thickness of the abdomen and prevent it from wedging into the needle. Needles It is a segmented area or block to help ensure that the pressure from one area to another in the needle is always the same."

Over the years, when it comes to injection systems with bacon, consistency, speed, better control, more automation and less maintenance have all been significantly improved. This has led to newer technologies in the injector and brine mixing system.

"Customers requested improvements to the equipment to help them minimize errors in their processes and ownership," Steinman said. "They want equipment to be easier to operate, clean and maintain. Servo motors use more adjustments to help improve processes and minimize inconsistencies to increase speed and increase yield. HMI controls help dial in all settings and functions for ease Make changes and save according to changing conditions in the process."

Brown pointed out that higher viscosity brine is used to inject meat pellets into many injection products, but it is illegal to use it in bacon. However, the knowledge gained contributes to "all natural" products, because brine tends to have a higher viscosity due to the increased percentage of ingredients compared to water in brine.

"These all-natural brines are also regarded by consumers as cleaner ingredients," he said. "The logic is to replace ingredients containing'ites' and'ates' with cleaner-sounding ingredients. One example is not to say sodium nitrite in the ingredient declaration, but to replace it with a natural healing ingredient and say ,'Natural spices' or'celery juice powder'."

Another area of ​​improvement in recent years is the maintenance of equipment.

For example, the servo motors of the Fomaco M3 series reduce maintenance requirements, thanks to the central lubrication system in the cabinet, which automatically distributes grease to the servo motors in cleaning mode.

Precipak's smaller syringes are directly driven, which makes the machine very simple for smaller processors without the need for a dedicated maintenance team to provide frequent service.

"If any needles become clogged or broken during this process, all syringes have a simple needle replacement process," Brown said. "This reduces downtime for changes. Our injectors are also designed to protect electrical components by using a separate cabinet that is located above the machine's salt water working level to prevent leakage."

Other maintenance requirements include a single grease fitting on the swing arm connector between the motor and the needle holder head, which is lubricated once a week; proper maintenance of the salt water filter to reduce needle blockage during the production process; and preliminary use of cold water for the machine rinse.

Some factories have injection lines with automatic brine mixing systems, automatic injection lines, automatic combing lines, and abdominal treatment lines in continuous cooking ovens. This is to achieve continuous production, reduce human contact to ensure food safety and reduce labor in the process.

"Robots will become more and more integrated into the process," Steinman said. "The current pandemic has accelerated this process to a certain extent, and it will become more and more necessary in the future. The factory has been running with fewer available personnel, and now more automation will be considered to keep the production line running."

Thrysoe believes that the future is automated, transferring the detection of abdominal size and counts per minute to a large board to monitor real-time performance.

Looking ahead, due to COVID-19 demand and artisan boutiques’ perception of high quality, Brown expects more small processors to enter this category.

"COVID-19 is a bad thing on a global scale, but it does force consumers to experience products from local or smaller processors because the national distribution of large processors is sold out or not available in stores," he Say. "We will also see more creative flavor profiles. We will always provide staples such as smoked or maple bacon, but as the bacon is no longer the center of the plate, it is more condiments or snacks, so unique The flavor may appear."