CHICKEN WINGS CUT-UP FOR FAST FOOD

Chicken wings—spiced, marinated, coated or just as they come—are an ideal fast food meal component, perfect for on-the-go eating or as a TV snack. Wing products come with various names such as Buffalo Wings, Hot Wings, BBQ Wings, Boneless Wings, Crignottes, and Coq’ailes. To cut such wings efficiently and consistently accurately, poultry processors are looking for solutions that meet the QSR customers’ requirements. Marel offers them a wide range of precision tools for producing these fast food wing products.

Processing wings is not the easiest task because the chicken does not use these muscles during its life span. Therefore, wings must be stretched out to present the wing to the cutting modules in the correct position. That’s why any Marel wing-cutting operation is always preceded by the automatic wing stretching module.

Anatomic or not
The small size of the wing segments makes the accuracy of the cuts more difficult. Usually, wing cuts are anatomic, not splitting any bone. Such wing processing demands precise, high-yield cuts exactly between the two joints. An accurate anatomic cut will not harm the yield of another wing part or breast meat harvesting.
Non-anatomic cuts, as preferred by certain QSR chains, have other interests to serve, as we shall see.

Weighing and quality grading
QSR wing products must be of a given size and without blemish. Carcasses must therefore be weighed, and the quality of their wings assessed. In a fully in-line process, with automated transfer from line to line, the weighing re-hanger TR-CS/GI or the SmartWeigher in the distribution line weighs the carcasses.

Close to the SmartWeigher, Marel’s IRIS quality selection vision system assesses wing quality on a wing-by-wing basis. Carcass weight, wing quality and customer order usually determine which wing products are made from which carcass. Damaged wings are identified and released as programmed. For the most sophisticated handling of A and B-grade wings, Marel’s Q-Wing solution offers the utmost in assessment, accurate cutting, quality separation, distribution and yield for all wing parts. Including IRIS and the new WingMaster module, Q-Wing saves labor and ensures objective, consistent wing cutting with clear logistics. It allows you to add maximum value to wing parts of all quality grades.




One, two or three wing pieces
Since the number of cuts is limited, a QSR cut-up system can be mounted in a compact configuration, such as the ACM-NT Convenience Food solution. Its modules cut product into wing, breast, thigh and drumstick portions. Just like all other modules, the wing cutting modules are individually adjustable. By bypassing or adding modules, any QSR partition of the chicken wing in multiple pieces is possible.

When the QSR chain wants to sell separate wing pieces, specialized equipment to perform those cuts is needed in the processing facility. To cut off the wing tips anatomically is the task of the WingTipper. Further ACM wing cutting modules are available to cut two joint wing sections or individual drumettes and mid-wings (aka center pieces, wingettes, flats).

For most fast-food applications, the cut between drumette and mid-wing joints must be done particularly accurately and anatomically. ACM wing cutting modules are fitted with precisely adjustable guiding mechanisms to ensure repeatable accurate cutting at high speed. The WingMaster is a particularly flexible module, providing a precise anatomic wing cut with perfect skin coverage for mid-wing as well as drumette. The result is an excellent wing presentation with higher yield.

Back meat or breast meat attached
In many cases, processors will want to take advantage of harvesting additional meat together with the wings. This could be shoulder meat that would normally be left on the back portion of the chicken. A simple guide setting on the wing cutter allows this to be done. In markets where breast meat yield is highly prioritized, the wing cutting module can harvest an additional 5-7 grams of back meat without compromising breast meat yield.

Most QSR restaurant chains, however, like their wings harvested with a rosette of breast meat (aka silver dollar). When cutting up carcasses for the famous QSR 9-piece chicken buckets, all pieces must have similar weights, taking the same amount of time to fry. Logically, none of the 9-piece cuts is anatomic, resulting in unique wing, breast, thigh and drumstick cuts.

For small, light parts like the wings, this means that a substantial part of the breast must be added to reach the same weight as the thighs and drumsticks. So wings are to be cut deliberately with a rosette of breast meat attached. Marel can provide the perfect wing cutting module to achieve this silver dollar cut, as part of the QSR-approved ACM Convenience Food line.




Stand-alone or in-line
In every part of the world, a QSR chicken bucket may contain different quantities of chicken pieces, varying from 8 to 11 pieces. Besides that, QSR chains are very tight on their weight specifications and quality requirements. Marel has the perfect matching solution to perform such demanding high-performance special cuts in a very flexible way without any human interference: the dedicated ACM Convenience Food cut-up system, approved by QSR chains.

The ACM-NT Convenience Food system can function as a stand-alone system with manual shackling or be connected to an inline process through an automatic transfer unit. In that instance, the system can be completely automated, even up to the weighing and assessment processes. No labor is required to produce high-volume quantities of wings.

Fast-food wing cutting can also be incorporated into a full-fledged ACM-NT cut-up system. If certain specialized fast food cuts are required, the appropriate modules can be integrated.

Wings further processed
In many markets wing products are marinated. Wing products of the correct weight and quality grade can be released from the ACM cut-up system onto a conveyor belt, which will feed them automatically to ValueDrum for marinating - a truly in-line process – to produce high-quality Hot Wings or Buffalo Wings.

In the case of homestyle wings, the flouring, battering and breading processes can also be done with Marel solutions, such as the Active Flour Applicator, Active Batter Applicator and RevoCrumb or RevoBreader.

Marel has even composed a complete ‘Homestyle Chicken Wings Line’ including a ValueDrum for marination, two RevoBreaders (one for pre-dust and for dry coating) with an Active Tempura Applicator in between, followed by a GoldFryer, possibly a ModularOven and the necessary software.