At Ready Seafood’s lobster processing plant in Saco on May 19, about 250 were parked in a large processing formula that kills, quarters, sorts, cooks, extracts, freezes and packs 100,000 pounds of lobster a day.
Above the rattle of the production line is a futuristic upper chamber housing a $2. 5 million high-pressure processing machine, the cornerstone of the new plant, which was built in 2019. That day, the claws and joints rose from the floor. by a conveyor belt and deposited in the most sensitive part of a two-stage vertical metal cylinder suspended from a rail in the ceiling.
Once the massive cylinder is full, he pulls it along the slide to a hole in the floor to a vault and lowers it inward. A rolling lid slides automatically, closes tightly, and the vault is filled with water. Then the tension increases, holds, and then descended in a cycle of 4 to 5 minutes.
The high-pressure process, now used by at least 3 Maine lobster processors, opens up new product options, saves consumers the effort of extracting meat from shells, and reduces hard work in the processing plant.
“It never ceases to amaze me, I started as a kid using traps in my hand,” said Curt Brown, a marine biologist at Ready Seafood. “It’s a clean team. This is the future.
Brown, who holds a master’s degree in marine biology and policy from the University of Maine and a decade of painting experience at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, was hired seven years ago as part of Ready Seafood’s purpose of bringing science with a focus on quality. and sustainability. Brown has incorporated Ready into several industry and science component partnerships with the State Department of Marine Resources, UMaine and other educational institutions, and conducts outreach activities in Maine public schools.
You’re adding price through creating new products and making an investment in generation like high-pressure processing that allows you to create new products and make lobster for more people around the world, Brown said.
Over the past two years, more and more Maine lobster processors have opted for high-voltage processing generation since Richmond-based Shucks Maine Lobster introduced it to the state in 2006. Shelf life of classic hams known as Serrano ham, applies a water strain of up to 87,000 pounds per square inch to food products, eliminating microorganisms with minimal effects on taste, texture and nutritional value, without the need for preservatives.
When lobsters are processed in this way, the top strain also breaks the membrane that connects the meat to the shell, allowing the raw meat to be extracted, which was not possible before. Processors say it opens up many possibilities for new, cutting-edge preparations.
Chefs have experimented with new lobster dishes on their menus, and Ready Seafood offers “cold-split” raw lobster recipe tutorials on their Instagram account, from crispy fried lobster meat to lobster carbonara.
It is also more humane to kill locusts than to boil them alive. Since the UK identified locusts as sensitive, this has been more on the minds of consumers. Ready Seafood passes the lobsters through an electric surprise stunner right after unloading them and then slaughters them. first or puts them under total pressure.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in the past approved electrocution and the high-pressure remedy as humane tactics to kill locusts, however, lately it promotes veganism instead of seafood consumption.
“While killing locusts at high pressure would possibly be a little less ruthless than boiling those vulnerable animals to death or dismembering them, as PETA witness testimonies revealed, what locusts need is to live in peace,” said PETA’s top liaison, Sofia Chauvet. , adding that other people can take advantage of vegan seafood substitutes.
High-pressure processing makes it less difficult to choose raw and cooked lobster meat, reducing hard work requirements. However, Ready Seafood recruits staff from around the world to fulfill its wishes in the harvest season, employing another 250 people per day at its Saco plant and about 75 at its live lobster facility on Portland’s waterfront.
SMALL BATCH, HIGH PRESSURE
While Ready Seafood processes millions of pounds of lobster a year at its new plant, it has followed generation on a smaller scale.
For 25 years, Greenhead Lobster has specialized in Stonington lobster, which ships worldwide. In 2019, amid industrial wars and maximum tariffs, it embarked on the transformation with the structure of a new plant in Bucksport and the investment in a horizontal pressure processing formula manufactured through the Spanish manufacturer Hiperbaric.
“It was a vital decision,” owner Hugh Reynolds said of the $2. 7 million system. “One thing about the device is that we couldn’t do this for several days. It delays the procedure a bit, but it suited us because it simply sought to concentrate on quality and not volume. We are now fully in this procedure.
Processing around 30,000 pounds per day and around five million pounds a year, Greenhead doesn’t produce as much volume as larger processors, but specializes in small, fully traceable Stonington lobster imported from Deer Isle. During the intermediate seasons, it buys lobster from Canada, however, it does not process Maine lobster and Canadian lobster in combination on the same day. During this month’s site visit, it processed 148 instances of lobster that had been shipped within 40 minutes from its dock in Stonington.
Once unloaded, the lobsters are inspected to see if they are alive, then placed in small cylinders slightly larger than a box of bread, on a conveyor belt that transports them to the pressurizer. Inside, five high-voltage pumps bring the tension to an uncovered point. deep in the Mariana Trench, Reynolds said, which instantly kills locusts as well as microbes that can cause spoilage.
From there, they continue in the processing chain, where the tails are removed and the legs and bodies are separated. Raw glues pass through a liquid nitrogen freezer. products to eat. On other days, the claw and jarrete meat is extracted raw and packaged for sale to vendors and restaurants.
Reynolds said the decision to embark on processing was motivated by the option to promote frozen lobster tails on QVC’s telesales network. He hired a short-term transformer and began looking for other remedy options.
“I focused on enjoying a frozen lobster tail that felt like dining lobster on the pier in summer,” he said. they have become more and more complicated. “
He eventually opted for high-pressure processing because it extended shelf life, made extraction easier for staff and consumers, and preserved meat quality. Greenhead announces an 18-day shelf life for new meat, which is helping restaurants not worry too much about it. immediately.
Some other people said Reynolds was crazy about building the processing plant in Bucksport due to the difficulty of locating staff in the area, however, the ease of extracting meat at high pressure meant more could be processed with smaller shifts. Greenhead employs about 75 to 80 other people and has been able to fill positions without foreign visa holders.
Steph Lindsay, Greenhead’s director of sales and marketing, said the company has conducted a market and found that extracting meat from lobster tails is a challenge for its customers. The high-pressure procedure facilitates this.
“It’s like feasting on live lobster without the hassle of the lobster cookie,” Lindsay said. it had to be the right generation to live up to our project of getting other people to receive the most productive quality Stonington lobster.
HUMAN AND TASTY DEATH
The fact that high-pressure processing kills locusts immediately is also vital to Greenhead.
Over the years, the team has perfected its handling procedure to keep the lobsters alive without tension from the boat to the consumer. At the dock, the lobster is discharged from the ship and taken to a bloodless water tank, then sorted and maintained by another saltwater tank.
The live product is transported to Seabrook, New Hampshire, closer to the airport, and stored in a tank the length of a football box until it is fit to pack it and put it on a plane. seawater as heavily as possible.
The company’s interest in reducing tension in lobster began as an effort to decrease mortality transport, but has since evolved as the team learned the Japanese view of death in meat and fish and the importance of instant euthanasia.
Studies recommend that improper handling, storage in unnatural environments, and inhumane killing strategies can cause animals to release stressing hormones and enzymes, which can negatively affect meat quality. Other animal studies show that eating foods containing those hormones can cause a buildup in the same hormones in the consumer.
“We didn’t need the remedy to be anything stressful after spending all that time (storage and transportation) in this proper way,” Lindsay said. “Then death becomes super important, and that’s how we feel about it. It is a Japanese philosophy, however, there are studies about it.
It is this facet of the remedy that Reynolds and Lindsay would like to bring to the public.
“(High-pressure processing) is a weird, esoteric technical term, and wholesalers perceive it, but no one else perceives it,” Lindsay said, so he’s designing a broader term for the concept for marketing purposes in the United States. .
He sees a link to the Japanese “ike jime,” which refers to a way of slaughtering and handling fish that takes into account the welfare of the animal and aims to maintain the quality of the meat longer and its taste. The approach recommends killing a fish with a violent blow to the head or pricking its brain within a minute of pulling it out of the water as a first step.
While ike jime is a 200-year-old process, high-pressure processing achieves many of its goals through technology, and Maine’s lobster processors see its potential to incorporate them into their products.
“It’s such a classic industry. It’s this kind of generation that allows us to continue to grow as a company and as an industry,” said Brown of Ready Seafood. “It is our task to create value. This is what will move our industry. “in the future.
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