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Peruza's products let clients produce more quality product at less cost.
The Fish Processing Industry’s Role in a Sustainable Future
(LATVIA, 4/12/2021)
It’s no secret that the global population is growing. If current trends continue, by the time we reach 2050, we’ll need to figure out how to feed an extra 2-3 billion people.
And that’s no small task...
Growing conventional crops and rearing livestock requires huge amounts of resources: We currently use about half of the planet’s vegetated land for agriculture, with nearly 90% of fresh water being diverted towards food production.
Feeding all those extra people whilst protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gases is going to be a tall order.
The Answer isn’t Entirely Plant Based
The obvious policy shift towards a green economy, combined with the ever-greater emphasis on sustainable diets can make the future seem bleak for those in the fish processing industry. Yet somewhat surprisingly, the fortunes of fish producers may well be on the up:
The Global Increase in Protein Consumption
Policymakers might want us to eat less protein, but unfortunately for them, the data clearly shows that we’re eating more than ever before.
Protein consumption is tied to wealth, and so as developing countries begin to get richer, the demand for animal protein increases.
Credit: CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
Fish Could Help to Meet the Growing Demand
The World Resources Institute (WRI) recently revealed five targets that they hoped to achieve in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions whilst producing enough food for a growing global population:
Reduce demand for agricultural products.
Increase food production without requiring extra land.
Protect natural ecosystems.
Increase the fish supply.
Reduce emissions from agriculture.
Fishing For the Future
One of the major goals of the World Resources Institute is to shift diets away from beef, and towards less destructive forms of protein. It’s easy to imagine that the WRI’s vision involves oyster beds, algae and shrimp, yet in actuality, regular wild-caught seafood is already the least destructive form of protein available, providing fish stocks are carefully managed.
Credit: Clay Banks on Unsplash
The Bottom of the Food Chain
If we’re going to solve the problem of meeting the demand for more protein, without sacrificing sustainability in the process, we’ll need to embrace eating smaller fish.
For the most part, these smaller species have either been overfished by our recent ancestors, or they’ve not been considered viable due to the historical difficulties of processing smaller fish.
How the European Processing Industry is Adjusting
The European fish processing industry faces two specific challenges to stay relevant in a sustainable future:
Adjusting production lines to process the smaller fish species.
Overcoming the threat posed by cheap labour in developing countries.
Peruza, an industry leading equipment manufacturer based in Latvia, is one of the companies rising to the challenge, with turn-key technology that aims to vastly increase the speed and efficiency of fish processing plants, with a full suite of processing devices, including autonobbing machines.
Peruza Drum type nobbing line | Photo: courtesy Peruza
What on Earth is a Nobbing Machine?
In the fish processing industry, “nobbing” is the process of removing the head from a fish, leaving enough material attached to cleanly pull away the digestive tract at the same time.
For the manual line worker, it’s a skilful process, and on particularly small fish, can create too much waste to be profitable. The “drum type nobbing machine” is an elegant solution to this problem.
Highly Efficient
Peruza’s drum autonobbing machine can process up to 900 small fish per minute, cleanly removing heads and tails, whilst vacuuming away the guts for a clean and uniform final product.
Photo: courtesy Peruza
How Does it Work?
Drum nobbing starts by loading a hopper with fresh fish. From there, a conveyor belt slowly brings the fish towards the production line, whilst carefully sorting them into a head-tail orientation. When the fish arrive in the cutting drum, they’re quickly de-headed, followed by the removal of the digestive system by vacuum.
Humanity faces unprecedented challenges this century, as we balance the needs of a growing population whilst radically altering the way we produce our food. Through a combination of sensible policies and radical new technology, Europe’s fish industry is rising to meet the challenge head on.
About Peruza
Peruzais a process engineering and equipment manufacturing company. Peruza's products let clients produce more quality product at less cost. The company creates and produces production equipment mainly for the food processing industry, especially for fish processing.
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