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Ph ot o co ur te sy of M ar el Special Feature Processing equipment Seafood processors seek increased automation, precision By JameS Wright B uoyed by strong global demand for seafood, processing equipment manufacturers still like their prospects despite economic uncertainty in target markets. As retail and foodservice seafood buyers pursue portions, fllets and other valueadded products requiring less prep time in the kitchen or at the counter, their services and products are crucial. Farmed salmon is a good example. With global production on the upswing and demand for fresh and frozen fllets increasing, sales for salmon-processing 34 SeaFood Business July 2013 equipment are also robust, particularly where aquaculture output is at its highest — not necessarily where the labor is most afordable. "Norway is the strongest market, then Chile," says Torir Einarsson, CEO of Baader North America in Auburn, Wash., which focuses on the farmed salmon industry, partly because the wild salmon season is short by comparison. Norway is the world's leader in farmed salmon production, exporting NOK 29.6 billion ($5.1 billion; €3.9 billion) of salmon in 2012, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council. For suppliers there, hightech automated equipment is gradually replacing the need to ship product across the globe for secondary processing. More and more of the salmon that Norwegian producers once sent to China is staying in Norway, Einarsson says. He points to products like the Baader 581 high-speed flleting machine as an example of processing equipment dictating industry trends — creating enough capacity to compete with processing powerhouses in Southeast Asia. "It is a game-changer," says Einarsson of the 581 and other segments of Baader's state-of-the-art salmon processing line. "It moves the entire process close to the frst processing," he says, which is right on shore where the fsh are slaughtered. Producers are doing more flleting before rigor mortis sets in, he adds, "But the challenge is you have to be minimal with labor costs. With our new line, the need for more employees goes down." Older Baader salmon-processing lines that produced 10 fsh per minute required 10 to 15 employees to run the machines, Einarsson says. Precision weighing equipment is in demand. Te company's newest equipment needs only four people to crank out 18 fsh per minute. "If you count the whole [line], the payback is much higher. More fsh, with one-ffth the manpower," he says. In the United States, a net importer of processed fshery products, seafood production is relatively stable, and many of the leading suppliers and manufacturers are working with fairly new flleting and slicing equipment, says Dina Phinney, marketing manager for Marel USA in Seattle. But the U.S. market is not devoid of opportunity for equipment sales, Phinney says. In fact, she's bullish on the prospects for Marel's Flowscale precision-weighing machine, which was "if you count the whole [line], the payback is much higher. more fish, with one-fifth the manpower." — Thorir Einarsson, CEO, Baader North America approved for sale in the United States last December. "It's our newest baby," she says. Te Flowscale, which can handle a continuous stream of up to 100 tons of product per hour across its built-in Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com