MARKETS & TECHNOLOGY
T C hleeaBno-RoomomIn Slicing
Foo d safety concerns and growth in the sale of deli-style sandwiches by QSRs
have drawn USA poultry companies into clean-room slicing. BY TERRENCE O’KEEFE
S omething of a boom is occurring in pre-sliced, deli-style
luncheon meats, especially
turkey. Growth in the quick-service-restaurant (QSR)
deli business and concerns about food Because of the growth in the sales of
safety are helping to drive growth in slicing sliced products, many poultry processors
operations at poultry meat companies. are looking at getting into slicing, according
Sales of pre-sliced, deli-style luncheon to Lee Vande Wall, sales manager, Weber
meats continue to grow at a steady Slicers. Vande Wall
rate, according to Ken Rutledge, saidthathecautions
president and CEO, Dakota processorswhoare
Provisions. Rutledge was president interested in getting
of West Liberty Foods when that intoslicing. Listeria
company built its first clean-room
slicing plant five years ago and has
led Dakota Provisions through the
start-up of its own clean-room slicing operation in the last year. He said
that the remarkable number of QSR
outlets that have opened over the last
few years and existing QSRs that
have added deli-style sandwiches to
their menus are part of the reason
for the growth in slicing. At the Oil browning of logs can kill surface bacteria prior
to slicing.
retail level, Rutledge speculated that
sliced product sales have increased
because of the variety of new products that
are being introduced to the marketplace.
He also thinks that the turkey industry is
producing more high quality products, with
better taste, than it did 10 years ago. All this
is helping to drive sales.
Data on current sliced turkey product
sales is not easily obtained. Agristats
and the National Turkey Federation have
conducted biannual marketplace surveys
in recent years, most recently in 2005.
Cooked, further-processed sales for USA
turkey companies have risen substantially
over the last two decades. From 1994 to
2005, the percentage of total turkey pounds
sold in the USA as ready-to-eat product
increased from 13 percent to 23 percent.
Sliced, ready-to-eat products were added
as a survey category in 2003, and sliced
volume as a percentage of total industry
– for cooking or slicing or both – it doesn’t
appear that the rate of growth in cooked
products sales has slowed.
Clean-Room Slicing Boom
tonnage increased from 4. 32 percent in
2003 to 4.82 percent in 2005, an increase
of around 12 percent.
USA turkey companies have opened
three new cooking facilities in the last two
years Meantime, five new slicing operations, with clean rooms, have opened in the
last five years, and some existing plants
have added slicing capability. Based on
the industry’s recent investment in new
and expanded further processing facilities
High-speed slicers can adjust slice thickness
to help reduce give away on fixed weight
products.
control measures have been ratcheted up
several notches by processors in recent
years. “This isn’t something that you try
