HvidebækSlagteri was established as a company in 1990 and as a shareholder company in 2002. They slaughter 2400 pigs delivered from all over Denmark and manufacture 40 tonnes of sausages a week. The site is recently updated with new cutting and packaging facilities. The organization is small and effective and the company is family-owned. In order to compete with the much bigger corporate slaughter-companies, quality and flexibility has to be high, and the company is fulfilling the European veterinary standards. HVSL has staff of 50 employees.

Main roles/competences

HvidebækSlagteri A/S will deliver pork cuts from their slaughterhouse to the project and will contribute by adapting the cuts and packaging methods for the new process, expertise in quality judgment and market knowledge of fresh pork, sensory assessment by experts, recipes on sausages and will participate in practical testing of the shock wave machine.

Infrastructure available at HVSL: the company has a slaughter line, a cutting and deboning line, a packaging line and a sausage manufacturing line.

Benefit

HVSLs’ participation in the project is highly synergistic with their business strategy as they view the investment in novel technologies that can assist them in accelerating process times, improving eating quality of fresh pork cuts and optimizing the raw material for their sausage production as important for remaining competitive. HVSL (and HIK) expects to become first movers on national and international markets enabling them to directly economic benefitting from the added values of the new meat cuts and preactivated raw material.

High benefit by new/improved product:

• Low value meat cuts are made more tender with Shock waves.
• A pre-activated raw material for sausage production will improve yield and  lower the need for NaCl in the sausage batter.

 
Medium benefit by new/ improved processes:

• Shorter maturation time reduces energy costs and raises the throughput of meat in the production chain.
• Shock waves will result in a more even and higher quality of the meat
• Production of low salt meat products with good texture and quality

 
High benefit by expanding the existing market:

• New range of more tender meat cuts for retail and catering, with a longer shelf-life at the customer.
• New, pre-activated raw material for sausage production (B2B).
• New, low sodium sausages