Pink and chum salmon. Photo credit: Scott Smiley.
Pinbone Removal Machine
Problem: Consumers are leery about the presence of pinbones in fish fillets. For post-rigor fish, pinbones can be pulled without measurable loss of flesh, while with pre-rigor fish the pinbones must be cut from the flesh. Processors have complained about the loss involved in cutting pinbones out of fillets. Consumers are less attracted to fillets with this kind of a cut. A solution would be to develop a reliable mechanism for pulling pinbones from post-rigor fish.
Solution & Approach: The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute collaborated with us on this project. We investigated 8 separate mechanisms for pulling pinbones from pink and other salmon fillets. After considerable experimentation, we chose a design we refer to as rotary tweezers and developed a hand fed prototype of the machine. Workers new to the device could become expert in pinbone removal with about a half hour’s training. With the prototype we could pull about 95% of the pinbones on the first pass, including the challenging cervical pinbones. We also experienced about 90% success on pulling any of the residual pinbones on a second pass. This differs considerably from commercially available competing pinbone removal machines that cannot pull residual bones on a second pass with more than 50% fidelity. Patents for the device are held by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and they are seeking an industrial equipment manufacturer as a partner to commercialize this device.
Principal Investigator: Scott Smiley