TENDER, SUCCULENT CHICKENS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31783, 13 September 1968, Page 8

TENDER, SUCCULENT CHICKENS

OHICKEN. Tender, golden succulent. More and more it is an item on the New Zealander’s menu, both at home and when he dines out. No longer is it regarded as a luxury, for other meats cost the same, or more. An important industry has grown up to meet the demand for table chicken, and to provide birds which are consistent in quality, and realistic in price. Although many poultrykeepers provide table birds, there are two major companies specialising in meat chickens. One is General Foods, Limited, which produces the Tegel chicken, the other is Wood Brothers, Ltd, of Christchurch, which produces the Prairie Gold chicken. Prairie Gold Products was formed about two years ago, as a subsidiary company to Wood Brothers, Ltd, the mash-manufacturing firm. The company has a second subsidiary: Hi-bird Chicks, Ltd. This company produces day-old meat chicks to be grown under contract by individual farmers. Hi Brid Chicks was started in 1966. The day-old formation of the Prairie Gold company the day-old chicks are sent to contract growers until they have reached the correct age for killing. Prairie Gold Products began processing last year in leased premises at Leeston, before the present building at Bromley became available. Operations in the new plant started last year. Although many do not realise it, the meat chicken is a very different bird from that used for egg production, and countless hours of painstaking work and research go into maintaining and improving the quality of the breed. Hi-brid Chicks, Ltd, holds the New Zealand franchise for Hy-Line meat chickens bred in New South Wales. The Hy-line bird is a specially-bred meat chicken. The breed was started in New Zealand when the company obtained day-old chicks from Australia. But then there was an outbreak of Newcastle disease among poultry in Australia, and all imports of Australian birds and eggs were prohibited. This ban is still in force.

The ban on imports from across the Tasman has not been as serious for the local industry as it might have been. Working on information derived both from geneticists in Australia and from its own research, it has been able to maintain a standard of meat chicken at least as high as that in Australia.

Breeding programmes are still mapped out for the New Zealand company by the Australian experts, details of the local breeding birds being sent regularly to Australia.

All the company’s breeding and test-mating results are submitted to geneticists in Australia to ensure that the correct procedures are being followed. In certain family lines the New Zealand company is getting better results than is the Australian company. Day-old chicks are sent from the Weedons hatchery to contract growers within a radius of 25. miles of Christchurch. These growers raise the birds until they reach the killing age of about 63 days.

When raising the birds the growers use a particular feed stipulated by the company. The reason is that this feed is very carefully blended, to the extent of using computers to arrive at the correct blend to give a healthy bird with the best quality and quantity of meat.

All phases of the production of the birds is thus very closely controlled. The birds remain company property at all stages, and the grower is paid on the basis of the live-weight of the chickens delivered to the factory at Bromley. The birds are sent into the factory in special crates: each crate holds 375 birds, and six crates comprise a truck load. When the crates arrive at the factory each is weighed. The birds are then put on a conveyer or chain, being hung by their feet, and pass immediately from the unloading bay into the factory. There they are swiftly despatched with a knife. The birds pass over a bleeding trough before being carried through a

scalding bath. They then pass through an automatic plucking machine, which removes nearly all the feathers without damaging the surface of the skin. Next they are turned in the chain so that they hang by their necks instead of their feet.

Thus the second plucking machine removes any feathers not removed by the first. The birds then pass in front of a worker who inspects them to ensure the plucking has been thorough. The birds are then transferred to a separate chain which takes them into the eviscerating room. This process is carried out by several workers, each one completing one step of the process. The liver, heart and gizzard are removed and placed in separate polythene bags which are packed with each bird. Some of these by-products are exported. After all the eviscera have been removed the chickens are finally cleaned with a huge and powerful vacuum cleaner. They then pass through a washing machine, and the feet cut off and packed for export.

Each bird then goes through three rotating chillers. The first drops the temperature of the bird to 58 degrees, the next—which is kept cool by the constant addition of flaked icecools them to 40 degrees, and the third drops the temperature to 35 degrees.

After emerging from the chillers the birds are drained to remove excess water, gained during the processing. They then pass into the weighing and packing room. The birds are sorted by weight and packed in stretch polythene film. Each pack has the air removed, and is then passed into a steam tunnel which shrinks the pack tightly round the bird. The packs then pass through a glycol tunnel which rapidly lowers the temperature to minus 5 degrees, and from there they pass directly to the freezer.

A few birds are sold chilled but unfrozen—about 10 per cent leaving the plant in this form. Meatchicken companies generally prefer to sell frozen birds because of their safekeeping properties. As far as the consumer is concerned, the frozen and fresh birds are indistinguishable. It takes about two hours for a bird to pass from the truck to the freezer.