Method and device for processing a cluster of organs from a slaughtered animal

Abstract: Method and device for separating one or more organs or a part thereof from a cluster (38;161;210) consisting of a strong organ and other interconnected internal organs of a slaughtered animal (80), in particular a slaughtered bird. In a first step, the cluster (161;210) is taken out of the body of the slaughtered animal. Next, the strong organ is fixed and the cluster (161;210) is brought in a spatial orientation which is determined by the way of fixing. Tissue connections in the cluster (161;210) are broken on the basis of the spatial orientation of the cluster in the maintained condition of fixing.

Description: The invention relates to a device and method for removing a cluster of viscera from a slaughtered animal according to the preamble of claims 1 and 8 respectively. "Slaughtered animals" should be understood hereinafter as meaning both, for example, poultry and other (large and small) livestock. US-A-4 467 498, US-A-4 561 148 and NL-A-9100153 describe methods for eviscerating slaughtered poultry. In these cases use is made of a fixing means which is inserted through a vent opening into the body of a slaughtered bird, grips the gullet - i.e. the connection between crop and glandular stomach - and then removes the part of the cluster of organs connected to the gullet at the glandular stomach side, together with the gullet, completely from the body of the bird, the gullet breaking off at the crop side. Prior to the operation described in the abovementioned US patents, the cluster of organs has already been partially taken out of the body, with the aid of an evisceration means, following which the cluster of organs taken out of its natural position is hanging by the gullet, partially inside and partially outside the body. This creates space for introducing the fixing means into the body and moving the fixing means in the body in order to grip the gullet, which is essentially still in its natural position. In this known method the cluster of organs is removed in two successive mechanical processing steps, namely first partially with the evisceration means and then completely with the fixing means. In the device according to NL-A-9100153 a fixing means and an evisceration means are combined in a single construction, consisting of two C-shaped brackets which can be swivelled relative to each other, and with which a cluster of organs can be removed completely from a slaughtered bird in a single processing step. In this device also the cluster of organs is fixed by the fixing means at the gullet after the evisceration operation. After the cluster of organs has been removed completely from the bird with the aid of the fixing means, said cluster is released from the grip of the fixing means onto a conveyor belt or other discharge means, for manually, or manually as well as mechanically separating organs or a part thereof from the cluster. A major drawback of the known methods and devices is that, after the cluster of organs is removed completely from the slaughtered animal with the aid of the fixing means, said cluster is discharged in an unordered way. The fact that various organs of value, for example the stomach, the heart and the liver, usually still have to be separated from the cluster, and the fact that this is preferably carried out mechanically are the very reason why it is necessary to have a certain ordering or orientation of the cluster of organs or individual organs thereof before organs can be separated mechanically from them, because there are no machines which can process a cluster of organs in a random orientation. In the prior art, an intermediate manual operation on the cluster of organs after the evisceration is therefore always necessary in order to produce the desired orientation for the separation processing. The object of the present invention is to provide a device and method for performing an evisceration operation, during which a part of the cluster is fixed, and is still essentially in its natural position in the slaughtered animal, the device and method enabling a secure and reliable transfer of the cluster from the first fixing means to a subsequent fixing means. To attain this object, the device and method according to the invention are characterized as described in claims 1 and 8, respectively. The fixing according to the invention, once it is effected, is preferably used as long as possible. However, from the point of view of flexible running of the organ processing, it is advantageous to maintain the fixing by further fixing at least one of the organs, a part thereof or a connection between the organs which is in a predetermined position relative to the point or points of the first fixing, following which the first fixing is undone. The latter method can be used in particular when a separate evisceration device and separate devices for control, cleaning and separating operations are present, in all of which a cluster of organs is moved and positioned with the aid of a fixing means. If, prior to or during evisceration, when the organs are essentially in their natural position in the body of the slaughtered animal, the cluster is fixed at at least two points lying at a distance from each other, this not only improves the stability of the fixing compared with the situation in which the fixing is effected at only one point, but also provides an adequate reference of the fixed organ or organs or a part thereof, particularly during the transfer of the cluster of organs from a first fixing means to a second fixing means, in order to ensure a faultless mechanical transfer of the cluster. In a preferred embodiment of the inventive method the cluster is allowed to hang free from the point or points of fixing. Hereby the cluster partially unfolds, improving the access to the organs for the separating processing. The fixing is preferably achieved by clamping the cluster part in question, but it is also possible to fix the cluster part in question by suction, or by accommodating the cluster part in question in an appropriate bounded space. With a view to a separating operation to be carried out after an evisceration operation, the gullet, heart, liver, stomach and/or intestines are preferably fixed. These organs are not only easy to reach in the body of a slaughtered animal - the gullet, for example, in a manner which is known from the prior art, the stomach (where the slaughtered animal is a bird, the glandular stomach or the gizzard) and the liver, for example, by holding them by suction against the suction aperture of a suction nozzle by means of which the intestines or the intestines and the stomach of the slaughtered animal are sucked away previously, and the intestines, for example, by accommodating the vent in a bounded space - but also play a crucial role in the organ position determination in conventional organ cluster dividing devices. In a preferred embodiment, the evisceration means comprise a scoop which is disposed near one end of an elongated carrier and can be swung about an axis which is essentially at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the carrier, the fixing means comprising two jaw parts which are fitted near the end of the carrier and are movable relative to each other in a controllable manner for clamping a part of the cluster between them. Fixing means and evisceration means can be taken into the body of the slaughtered animal by means of a suitable drive with a mutually synchronised movement, for the purpose of fixing the organs in question prior to or during an evisceration operation. In a special embodiment of the device, which is specifically suitable for fixing at the position of the gullet, the scoop is provided with a slit for accommodating the gullet, the jaw parts of the fixing means defining a similar slit in line with the scoop slit and at a distance from the scoop. It should be pointed out that the fixing means which is designed to interact with an evisceration means when the organs are being taken out of the body, can also be designed to hold the organs in question or a part thereof against it by suction, although this is considered a less reliable option than mechanically fixing a cluster. The fixing means in the case of suction preferably is hollow and comprises one or more apertures, and can be placed under vacuum in a controllable way, for the purpose of holding one or more organs in or against an aperture by suction. Such a fixing means is described in, for example, NL-A-9002551, in which a selected organ, for example the stomach or the liver, can be fixed relative to the fixing means in the body of a slaughtered animal by holding by suction. However, this prior art device acts on organs taken one by one from the belly carity of a slaughtered animal, whereas the device according to the invention acts on a cluster of organs. The fixing means which is designed to interact with an evisceration means when the organs are being taken out of the body can also be designed to accommodate the organs in question or a part thereof in a space determined by the fixing means. In this case the fixing means used is, for example, a device for cutting out the vent of the slaughtered animal, of the type described in NL-A-9000782. The invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1a shows a side view, partially in cross-section, of a preferred embodiment of an evisceration and fixing means according to the invention; Fig. 1b shows a top view of the evisceration and fixing means of Fig. 1a; Figs. 2a-2d illustrate diagrammatically the removal of a cluster of organs from a slaughtered animal with the aid of an evisceration and fixing means according to Figs. 1a and 1b; and Figs. 2e-2g illustrate diagrammatically the transfer of a cluster of organs from the evisceration and fixing means according to Figs. 1a and 1b to a second fixing means. In the figures, like reference numerals relate to like elements or elements with similar functions. In the construction shown in Figs. 1a and 1b an evisceration means and a fixing means are combined to form an evisceration and fixing means 1. The evisceration means is known per se from NL-A-8400506, and comprises an elongated carrier 2, at one end of which a scoop 6 is fixed so that it pivots about a shaft 4. An evisceration operating rod 8 is pivotally fixed to the scoop 6 by means of a shaft 10, in such a way that when the evisceration operating rod 8 is moved in the direction of arrow 12 the scoop 6 swings in the direction of the arrow 13 - from the position shown by a solid line in Fig. 1a to the position shown by a dashed line in the same figure. The scoop 6 is provided with a longitudinal slit 14, which widens towards the centre of the scoop 6. A fixing means is added to the conventional evisceration scoop. Said fixing means comprises a first clamping part 16 which is fixed at the abovementioned end of the elongated carrier 2, and a second clamping part 20 which is hingedly connected thereto by means of a shaft 18. At the side facing the carrier 2, the second clamping part 20 is provided with an arm 22 which is hingedly connected by means of a shaft 24 to a fixing operating rod 26. Moving the fixing operating rod 26 in the direction of the arrow 28 causes the second clamping part 20 to swing in the direction of the arrow 30, with the result that a clamping slit 32 between the first clamping part 16 and the second clamping part 20 widens. A shoulder 34 provided at the end of the fixing operating rod 26 facing away from the scoop 6 and a compression spring 36 interacting therewith ensure that the second clamping part 20 always returns to the position shown in Fig. 1b when no force is exerted on the fixing operating rod 26 in the direction of arrow 28. The spring 36 determines the force which is necessary for enlargement of the clamping slit 32, or - in other words - determines the force with which the second clamping part 20 is pushed towards the first clamping part 16 at the position of the clamping slit 32. In use, as Figs. 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b illustrate, the evisceration and fixing means 1 shown in Figs. 1a and 1b is moved in the position shown by solid lines in the last-mentioned figures into the body of a slaughtered animal, for example a slaughtered bird 80 hanging by the legs from a hook 81, through an evisceration opening in the body in the region of the vent. In this case the scoop 6 will have to be capable of reaching past the major part of the organ cluster to the vicinity of the neck of the slaughtered animal, as illustrated in Fig. 2b. The neck region may be reached along the back side of the carcass, as shown in the figures, or along the front side thereof. When the scoop 6 has reached this position, operating the fixing operating rod 26 in the direction of the arrow 28 causes the clamping slit 32 to widen, and the scoop 6 is swung over in the direction of the arrow 13 by a movement of the evisceration operating rod 8 in the direction of the arrow 12. The result of this is that the gullet 38a of the slaughtered animal comes to lie both in the widened clamping slit 32 and in the longitudinal slit 14 of the scoop 6. The force exerted on the fixing operating rod 26 in the direction of the arrow 28 is then removed, so that as a result of the action of the compression spring 36 the second clamping part 20 moves relative to the first clamping part 16 in such a way that the clamping slit 32 is narrowed. The gullet 38a present in the clamping slit 32 is consequently fixed relative to the two clamping parts 16 and 20. This is illustrated in Fig. 2c. The next step is to move the evisceration and fixing means 1 out of the slaughtered animal in the lengthwise direction of the carrier 2, with the result that the gullet breaks off at the side of the clamping slit 32 facing away from the carrier 2 and the scoop 6 removes the cluster of organs 38 situated at the level of the carrier 2 from the body of the slaughtered animal, as shown in Fig. 2d. The fixing of the gullet in the clamping slit 32 is retained during this process. If the device for carrying out the operations (evisceration and fixing) shown in Figs. 2a - 2d is different from the device for carrying out further operations, a mechanical transfer operation between the first-mentioned and last-mentioned operations is necessary. This transfer operation is illustrated in Figs. 2e - 2g. Starting from the situation reached in Fig. 2d, the cluster of organs 38 is conveyed away from the slaughtered animal 80. It can be seen clearly in Fig. 2e that a part of the gullet 38a is situated at a predetermined position under the clamping slit 32, where it is clamped between the clamping parts 16 and 20. This precise positioning means that the part of the gullet in question can be fixed securely and reliably between the clamping elements 74 and 76, as Fig. 2f shows. After this, the fixing by the evisceration and fixing element 1 is no longer necessary, as Fig. 2g illustrates. It will be clear from the above that, by maintaining a fixing of organs which may have been achieved already during an evisceration operation, an important further mechanisation of the activities in a slaughterhouse is possible, in order to raise the quality of the products supplied and to reduce the production costs.

Claims: Device for removing a cluster of viscera from a slaughtered animal (80), comprising: a fixing means being adapted to move through an evisceration opening into the body of the slaughtered animal for fixing a part of the cluster (38) relative to the fixing means, and evisceration means (1) designed to interact with the fixing means for taking the cluster (38) out of the body, the evisceration means comprising a tiltable scoop (6) having a side designed to be facing the cluster (38) in the body, and an opposite side designed to be facing the carcass in the body, characterized in that the fixing means are situated at said opposite side of the scoop (6), the fixing means and the scoop (6) being spaced from each other when fixing said part of the cluster by the fixing means. Device according to claim 1, wherein the fixing means comprises two jaw parts (16, 20) which are movable relative to each other in a controllable manner for clamping a part (38a) of the viscera between them. Device according to claim 2, wherein the jaw parts (16, 20) are biased towards each other. Device according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the jaw parts (16, 20) are fitted near an end of an elongated carrier (2). Device according to claim 4, wherein the jaw parts (16, 20) are adapted to be swung about an axis which is essentially at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the carrier (2). Device according to any of claims 1-5, wherein the scoop is provided with a slit (14). Device according to claim 6, wherein the slit (14) widens towards the centre of the scoop (6). Method for removing a cluster of viscera from a slaughtered animal using the device according to any of claims 1-7, wherein the movements of the fixing means and the scoop (6) are synchronized with each other. Method according to claim 8, wherein the fixing means and the scoop (6) are generally aligned to each other while moving the device into the body of the slaughtered animal. Method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the fixing means and the scoop (6) are generally spaced while moving the device out of the body of the slaughtered animal. Method according to any of claims 8-10, wherein the fixing means and the scoop are operated independent from each other. Method according to any of claims 8-11, wherein the cluster is fixed at the gullet thereof.

Inventors: DRABBELS BASTIAAN WILHELMINA J, JANSSEN PETRUS CHRISTIANUS MAR, TEURLINX ENGELBERT JOHANNES JA, VAN DEN NIEUWELAAR ADRIANUS JO, VAN HARSKAMP CORNELIS DIRK, DRABBELS, BASTIAAN WILHELMINA JOHANNES ELIZEUS J., JANSSEN, PETRUS CHRISTIANUS MARINUS, TEURLINX, ENGELBERT JOHANNES JACOBUS, VAN DEN NIEUWELAAR, ADRIANUS JOSEPHES, VAN HARSKAMP, CORNELIS DIRK
Applicants: STORK PMT, STORK PMT B.V.
Application year: 1993
Main classification: A22C21
IPC codes: A22C17, A22C21