How Sibagro meat processing plants deliver fresh products to consumers

The MEAT must be fresh. Only then is it a really valuable and useful product containing many proteins, vitamins and amino acids necessary for a full life. Portal Tomsk.ru with the help of the project "Meat - eat!" told how the Sibagro Tomsk Meat Processing Plant achieves the freshness of its products.

Two days for minced meat, three days for pork - these are the maximum shelf life of raw meat even in the most modern and clean refrigerator. When working with pork products, Sibagro meat processing plants take care of freshness, trying to minimize the time from cutting the carcass to packaging the finished product. The second secret of freshness is maximum mechanization, which allows minimizing the contact of meat with human hands, and hence with the bacteria living on them.

In 2018, a line for the production of minced meat was installed at the Sibagro Tomsk Meat Processing Plant, where the employee was only required to press a button.

“Ingredients are put into the bunker, the machine automatically dispenses minced meat into trays, which are also fed automatically. Minced meat falls into the tray and is immediately packed under the film. Moreover, it looks like it was made in a home meat grinder: it lays down in wavy stripes, like a comb, beautiful and fresh, - says Irina Skokshina, chief technologist of the Sibagro meat processing plant in Tomsk. “During the production process, minced meat, like any other chilled product, is not touched by hands at all – this is important, because in this way we minimize contamination by microorganisms from humans.”

The same level of automation is on the line that produces dumplings. A person puts minced meat in the machine, and then everything is done by machinery. It takes a few seconds for the machine to make a dumpling and send it to shock freezing. Another 40 minutes and the frozen dumpling is packaged and ready to be sent to stores.

All processes are controlled by the MES system, which continuously takes into account the quality, categorization and safety of products at all stages of processing. There are no problems with the quality of the feedstock, since the meat is delivered from the Sibagro pig farm, located next to the meat processing plant.

When it comes to fresh meat, there is no such thing as too fast. The freshness of products is achieved by constant improvement of technology. Thanks to a multi-level conveyor, it takes a maximum of five minutes from carcass cutting to product packaging at Sibagro. Such a system is used at meat processing plants in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk, which made it possible to increase the shelf life of the chilled product from 10 to 15 days, and in the future - up to 21 days.

The conveyor is unique, even in Europe there are usually several conveyors at the enterprise, meat is transferred from one to another by hand. Therefore, the conveyor was prepared for Sibagro by special order from Russian manufacturers.

But cutting and packaging products is far from everything. It needs to be delivered to the customer as soon as possible. For this, Sibagro radically changed the assortment and logistics of meat processing. Previously, each plant had several own brands. Now all products are produced under the Sibagro brand. The assortment was also unified. At the same time, each of the sites received a specialization.

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“Our main customers for chilled products and sausages are large chains, as well as an extensive network of distributors, and in Siberia the main distribution centers of the chains are concentrated in Novosibirsk or in nearby areas, so the production of our main Sibagro brand was moved to the site in Novosibirsk. Our task is to ensure the shortest possible transport distance when delivering Sibagro products to our customers, so that our products reach the store shelves fresh,” says Veronika Savinova, Commercial DIRECTOR for Meat Processing.

Tomsk specializes in sausages for discount chains. The plant has large storage areas, and there should be a lot of products for discounters. Yekaterinburg is specialized under the Sibagro brand in the Urals. Novosibirsk is a site in Siberia.

“Thus, we have two large distribution centers in Siberia and the Urals, which provide our consumers with fresh products every day,” emphasizes Veronika Savinova.

The optimal delivery radius from production to the distribution center is 500 kilometers, so that fresh products are guaranteed to reach the customer in a day.

“When production is optimized and specialized, it concentrates on the best products that are 100% loved by customers,” explains Veronika Savinova. — On the other hand, when the product line is optimally selected, it becomes possible to look in the eyes of our consumers as a single large brand. For customers, Sibagro becomes a big supplier, and the end-to-end assortment begins to be presented in different territories. Thus, our buyer, leaving Novosibirsk, for example, to Chelyabinsk, can be sure that he will find the Sibagro brand there and there - guaranteed high-quality and fresh. And you don’t have to look elsewhere for an alternative.”