Method for producing a reconstituted raw piece of meat

Abstract

A method for combining a slice of raw meat and a layer of reconstituted raw piece of meat to obtain a combined raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat.

Prior products have been rejected as disadvantageous because: they contain chemical additives such as aminases; they are expensive to produce; they have an inhomogeneous appearance; they tend to separate/disassemble into single components during handling, reducing their shelf-life.

Invention contains only glycerol and salt as binders; stabilizing and preserving are carried out in a single step by drying to a residual moisture of approx. 10%. The raw combination of reconstituted meat/meat has the optical appearance of pure meat, similar elasticity and a precisely adjusted residual juice content. Such a pet food snack can include all types of meat of respective prey animals and shows no tendency to separate, even when subjected to impact, pressure, or shock stresses in a loosely stacked bag package.

Claims

1. A method for producing a combination of raw reconstituted meat and raw meat, having increased shelf life in a loosely stacked bag package, wherein a) a reconstituted meat composition for reconstitutable raw masses, comprising shredded meat and binders, consisting of the components 100 parts by weight of shredded animal meat, 0.1 to 20 parts by weight of sodium chloride, 0.01 to 10 parts by weight of binder consisting of glycerol, 0 to 10 parts by weight of additional plant or animal protein, and up to 5 parts by weight of adjusting, auxiliary and unavoidable accompanying substances of the components, is provided; b) a solid piece of meat is cut into slices of uniform thickness, the thickness varying +4%, and c) the slices are arranged lying flat, wherein each of the slices lying flat provides an individual target surface for a reconstituted meat layer, wherein d) the reconstituted meat layer is obtained by applying the meat composition of step a) to the target surface of step c) and e) drying the combination of reconstituted meat/meat to a residual moisture of approximately 10%.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the layer thickness of the reconstituted meat composition is 0.1 cm to 2 cm, the thickness of the slices is 0.1 cm to 1 cm, and the thickness of the slices is a maximum of 70% of the layer thickness of the reconstituted meat layer.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that only poultry meat is used as the meat and as the shredded meat.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that only chicken is used as the meat and as the shredded meat.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that in the raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat, the slice of solid meat is arranged with its upper side visible and with a lateral surrounding edge, with the edge thus ensuring an optically uniform transition to the reconstituted meat layer bonded on its underside by drying.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION BY MEANS OF EXAMPLES

[0050] In a preferred embodiment, a combined raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat, more particularly a raw piece of meat for animal feed, comprises a layer of a reconstituted meat composition comprising shredded meat and binders, wherein in turn the reconstituted meat composition consists of the components [0051] 20 to 90 parts by weight of shredded meat, [0052] 0.001 to 20 parts by weight of sodium chloride, [0053] 0.01 to 10 parts by weight of glycerol, and [0054] 0 to 10 parts by weight of animal or plant protein, [0055] with the remainder comprising adjusting and auxiliary substances and unavoidable accompanying substances of the components, the raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat further comprises at least one slice of solid meat, wherein in turn [0056] the shredded meat and slice of solid meat are composed of chicken or poultry meat, [0057] the layer thickness of the reconstituted meat layer is 0.1 cm to 2 cm, the thickness of the slices is 0.1 cm to 1 cm, and the thickness of the slices is a maximum of 70% of the layer thickness of the reconstituted meat layer, [0058] in the raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat, the at least one slice of solid meat is arranged with its outer side visible, and [0059] the raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat was obtained by preparing the meat slices, combining them with a suitably punched out reconstituted meat layer, optionally applying further slices, and drying.

[0060] In a further advantageous embodiment, solid muscle meat, preferably from an outer chicken fillet, is first cut into longitudinal slices measuring 2.5 mm in thickness. For this purpose, the meat is prepared by chilling or freezing in order to ensure improved uniformity of the slices produced at 35 C. from the partially solidified tissue. The layer fillet obtained in this manner is composed of approximately 15 to 20 oval slices of identical thickness up to 0.1 mm, i.e. +4% uniformity in thickness, with varying diameters. These slices are placed on a conveyor belt.

[0061] In parallel to this process, the reconstituted meat is produced according to a predetermined recipe; for this purpose, mechanically obtained poultry tissue having the lowest possible fat content, which because of its content of tendons and cartilage can provide better texture, is preferably used. Frozen blocks of such meat are shredded and then finely minced for 5 minutes with a small amount of salt, preferably 0.002%, and 7% glycerol relative to the mixture. The temperature of the minced mixture is constantly maintained at less than 3 C. Optimum juiciness and reconstitutability are obtained at 3 to 5 C. The mass temperature-controlled in this manner is passed through a reconstituting machine in which the suitable reconstituted fillet pieces are produced.

[0062] For this purpose, the fillet slices are analyzed, suitable oval shapes are chosen from a selection of 16 available shapes, and formed reconstituted meat layers are punched out. The shapes are selected so that they correspond to sizes less than or equal to the oval slices of the fillets. The reconstituted meat layers are fed onto a parallel conveyor belt, and the fillet slices are placed on the respective reconstituted meat layers, wherein the individual layer diameters correspond at a maximum to the diameter of the slice; the fillet and/or the reconstituted meat layer is preferably turned such that there is a maximum number of contact points at the edges of the reconstituted meat layer that has been kept smaller or of equal size.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE

[0063] A comparative product was prepared, wherein the reconstituted meat was prepared according to prior art, consisting of chicken meat, 14 percent by weight water, 3 percent by weight of egg albumin and 1 percent by weight of carboxymethyl cellulose (the latter two being a binding mixture/established mixture for solidifying raw meat admixtures).

[0064] The inventive reconstituted meat/meat product produced in this manner is dried at approximately 50 to 80 C. in a hot-air oven for approx. 18-24 hours to a residual moisture of approx. 10%. In the finished product, both layers are bonded to each other in a stable manner and show no tendency to separate, even when subjected to impact, pressure, or shock stresses in a loosely stacked bag package.

[0065] Comparative product was dried likewise; at raised temperatures the binders resulted in a faster drying process, due to enhanced stabilisation of water within a binding matrix; the amount of removable water was thus less, while the product appeared similar in elasticity/hardness.

[0066] Comparative product and inventive product were placed30 pieces eachinto respective flat plastic bags of 0.5 L maximum volume. 10 of each plastic bags were placed into cardboard boxes. Each box was dropped from 30 cm height 10 times. Afterwards each box was tumbled slowly in full circly 10 times. Then boxes were opened and bags were poured out from 50 cm height and concludingly arranged in a display shelf for optical inspection and subsequent analysis.

[0067] A snack was recorded as broken in case of complete separation of reconstituted meat layer from the sheer meat layer;

a snack was recorded as chipped, in case of visible, complete loss of more than 5% of the reconstituted meat layer (i.e. sheer meat layer was visible);
wear debris, i.e. meat powder accumulating at the bottom of the bag, was recorded as substantial in case said powder exceeded the height of 1 cm.

[0068] Overview of results is given in the following table:

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 comparison of mechanical stability of inventive products vs. Comparative products: Sample broken snacks chipped snacks amount of wear debris comparative 3.1 10.2 much; 4 substantial; invention 0 0.3 traces; none substantial;

[0069] Inventors attribute inferior performance of established snacks to the added water in combination with the binding agents: Inventors assume water dilutes binding fibers to begin with and then binding agents fix surplus water and binding fibers within their weaker binding network; the resulting snacks seem to be equal in consumption (i.e. chewiness/elasticity) but turn out to be mechanically much more instable in spite of added egg-protein and carboxymethylcellulose. These snacks lose acceptable appearance pretty fast and will not be accepted within the market.

[0070] Complementing experiments corroborated the above results: If no additional water is added the combination of glycerol and salt provides surprising stability of the obtainable snacks, improving shelf-life and stability of optical appearance considerably.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

[0071] A method for combining a slice of raw meat and a layer of reconstituted raw piece of meat to obtain a combined raw piece of reconstituted meat/meat.

[0072] Prior products have been rejected as disadvantageous because: they contain chemical additives such as aminases; they are expensive to produce; they have an inhomogeneous appearance; they tend to separate/disassemble into single components during handling, reducing their shelf-life.

[0073] Invention contains only glycerol and salt as binders; stabilizing and preserving are carried out in a single step by drying to a residual moisture of approx. 10%. The raw combination of reconstituted meat/meat has the optical appearance of pure meat, similar elasticity and a precisely adjusted residual juice content. Such a pet food snack can include all types of meat of respective prey animals and shows no tendency to separate, even when subjected to impact, pressure, or shock stresses in a loosely stacked bag package.