Automation in the Global Meat Industry

Increased use of automation, especially robotic cutting, has been examined in the meat industry for many years (Hinrichsen, 2010; Barbut, 2014). For an industry driven by the challenges of a tightening labor pool and ever more complex processing operations, increased automation is not only welcomed but also needed. Portions of our industry with less biological variation (mostly pork and poultry) have seen a faster adaption of automation, while other segments incur challenges that limit adoption. Challenges include raw material sources, biological variation, sanitary design, equipment durability, human as well as food safety, training, operation management, and many others.

More recently, challenges with operational efficiencies associated with COVID-19, lack of labor, and temporary closing of large plants, made the timing of this special edition opportunistic. In 2020, popular press and industry trade magazines touted the interest in and need for more automation and robotics in the meat industry. This interest was clearly driven for use in meat processing plants as a response to challenges due to the effects of the COVID-19 on plant operations and resulting shortages in labor. The current state of labor challenges, supply chain delays, and other effects of the global pandemic has the meat industry considering the increased investment in automation (Anderson et al., 2021).

The goal of this issue was to explore the prospects for, and the current state of, automation in the global meat industry, including beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and fish. The intent was to stimulate discussion, get a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges to frame a direction for the future of automation in the meat industry. As we discussed this topic with colleagues the consensus was, we needed the voices of both industry and academics. We are fortunate in the meat industry that academia and industry often work hand in hand.

I want to thank the significant efforts of the authors and the time they devoted to this project. This wide and diverse group is forward-thinking leaders in their respective fields and as such, they are extremely busy. Thank you for spending the time to prepare manuscripts, telling stories of experiences, contemplating challenges, and offering thoughts on opportunities and sharing ideas on how to move forward. Thank you to the reviewers and the editorial staff at Animal Frontiers. Many folks were willing to read manuscripts and provide input.

To begin our discussion of this important topic, we asked Khodabandehloo Koorosh who is based in the United Kingdom and involved in commercial robotics since 1997. In “Achieving Robotic Meat Cutting” (Khodabandehloo, 2022), Khodabandehloo describes his experiences with robotic meat cutting of beef, pork, lamb, and poultry over a 40-year career. Challenges over the years have been significant, including matching human sensory perception, motor control, and decision processing in robotic design. Khodabandehloo describes the steps he followed in methodology and approaches applied to meat cutting to achieve robotization. Additionally, he describes the automation breakup and butchery of carcasses, including pork, lamb, and beef.

As we set out to frame the discussion on the next steps in automation for the global meat industry a conversation with Dr. Lars Hinrichsen from the Danish Technological Institute and his explanation of the robotic production cell approach led to his important contribution. In “We Need to Rethink Production Technology for Meat Packers—The Old Cutting Table Is Being Revived,” Hinrichsen et al. (2022) offer a frank discussion of the opportunities we will have due to the potential of production cells. He poses an important question; instead of designing the automation technology to fit the production line why not design the production setup to fit the automation technology? He describes how robots will work simultaneously or even collaboratively and ideally process an entire carcass, including cutting and deboning, and provides details on how a robotic production cell is particularly relevant for larger carcasses due to the labor intensity.

We are pleased Mark Seaton from Scott Technology Limited was willing to present a case study in automation in the lamb industry. “Lessons in Automation of Meat Processing” (Seaton, 2022) is based on his personal experience and the “lessons” come from their team experiences as they developed automation for lamb, as well as beef, pork, and poultry. It is a unique look beyond just the automation aspects and contains a well-developed list of adoption considerations for automation implementation.

Diverse perspectives were important, and the meat industry encompasses different species, production models, and processing systems. Dr. Hildur Einarsdóttir from Marel took on the significant task of developing a paper entitled “Automation in the Fish Industry” (Einarsdóttir et al., 2022). Dr. Einarsdóttir discusses the challenges for adoption of automation in an industry that has significant biological variation and special challenges due to wild harvest. With a description of basic fish processing, she presents some successes and the trials of machine vision to identify defects and automating trimming of defects in fish fillets.

We were pleased to have two excellent submissions from the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Aerospace, Transportation & Advanced Systems Laboratory. Work being done by research groups working in poultry broiler and breeder management as well as poultry processing provides us a rare look into systems that could work together.

Michael Park looks at opportunities that exist for the future of poultry production with a manuscript entitled “Artificial Intelligence, Sensors, Robots, and Transportation Systems Drive an Innovative Future for Poultry Live Operations” (Park et al., 2022). An analysis of the novel innovation in sensing, robotic systems data collection, analytics, and increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) illustrate potential improvements in both food safety and animal welfare through use in live animal operations.

Dr. Konrad Ahlin prepared a unique manuscript entitled “The Robotic Workbench and Poultry Processing 2.0” (Ahlin, 2022). Ahlin presented ideas and discussed projects, including the robotic workbench and cobots. This new prospect may provide significant benefits to the poultry processing industry. The work that is being done today in researching new robotic techniques could pave the way for a future of protein production that is efficient, diverse, and scalable. The potential of flexible machines that can perform a variety of tasking may foreshadow a new model of manufacturing.

Our final author is Chafik Barbar, the creative leader of Marble Technologies, an automation company. Barbar shared his ideas and approaches for robotics in the meat industry and discusses the use of AI-driven automation in meat processing. The resulting effort was “Artificial Intelligence Driven Automation is How We Achieve the Next Level of Efficiency in Meat Processing” (Barbar et al., 2022). Chafik examined how the next generation of automation will be a software product rather than a hardware product and how AI-driven automation should be assessed through a strategic lens that looks beyond reduced labor costs.

We hope the thoughts, experiences, and ideas of the authors will spur development, creation, and solutions to the challenges of implementing automation in the global meat industry.

About the Author

Dr. Robert J. Delmore is a professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. He teaches courses in Meat Science, Meat Processing, and Food Safety. He is a member of the Center for Meat Safety & Quality conducting research to address national and global issues. He recently oversaw design and construction of the JBS Global Food Innovation Center in Honor of Gary and Kay Smith at Colorado State University. He directs the production for Beef Sticks for Backpacks, a nonprofit providing high-quality beef sticks to food-insecure children in Colorado. In 2016, Delmore was recognized by the National Provisioner magazine and named to their list of “25 Future Icons of the Meat Industry.” Previously, Delmore spent 9 years in the Animal Science Department at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. In addition to teaching courses, Bob oversaw the University processing facilities and was instrumental in the design and construction of a new Meat Processing Center. Dr. Delmore was formerly the Vice President of Technical Services at Clougherty Packing Company (Farmer John). Dr. Delmore received a bachelor of science degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (1991) in Food Science, earned a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1993), and received a PhD from Colorado State University (1998). Bob and his wife Dr. Lynn Graves Delmore, also a well-regarded meat scientist, live in Wellington CO, with their two daughters Ainsley and Tessa.