up and down the road by power units burning diesel that is being sold at the highest prices seen in years. And no matter how much renderers beg and plead with their raw material suppliers, they just don’t seem to understand renderers are trying to help their customers save money by showing them the cost of hauling those excess pounds. Yet, renderers can manage that excess water and keep it from having an effect on product yield. First and foremost, the volume of that water must be understood and not figured into the total raw material volume. Many renderers don’t have the ability to drain and reweigh every trailer that hits the yard, so they must develop a way to determine the typical amount of excess water so it can be deducted from total pounds. For those that have the luxury of reweighing each load, congratulations, you are one step closer to solving the problem. Once the excess water challenge is battled, the next piece of the puzzle is maintaining product freshness. Product freshness has a wide range of impacts on rendering, including quality assurance, odor, processing issues, and yield variance. Many renderers dream of a refrigerated trailer staging area where offal and other products can wait to be processed in the comfort of about 33 degrees Fahrenheit, but then wake up and realize its actually 105 degrees outside and the material is preheating in the trailers. Why is that a Table 1. Example of increasing revenue by increasing moisture content 500 tons poultry by-product meal per week x .03 (3% increase in moisture content/weight) = 15 additional tons per week 15 tons per week x 52 weeks per year = 780 additional tons of poultry by-product meal per year 780 tons per year x $600 per ton value = $468,000 increase in annual revenue Table 2. Example of increasing yield by increasing moisture content 15 additional tons poultry by-product meal per week x 52 weeks per year = 780 additional tons per year 500 tons poultry by-product meal per week / .19 (19% protein meal yield) = 2,632 tons of raw material per week 2,632 tons raw material per week x 52 weeks per year = 136,864 tons raw material per year 780 additional tons poultry by-product meal production / 136,864 tons raw material = .6% yield increase per year problem? As the product begins to break down, or degrade, many of the recoverable proteins and oils will become soluble. When excess water is drained from the trailers, those proteins and oils are lost down the drain to water treatment facilities where they are transformed from yieldable finished product that can be sold, to a waste stream renderers have to pay to treat. The moral of the story is, raw material must be managed utilizing an effective first-in, first-out process, and processing plants must be maintained in a manner that keeps them operating both efficiently and reliably. This will help ensure that product doesn’t sit in the yard longer than necessary. Once fresh, well-drained product goes into the system, renderers can then take total control of yield destiny. Here is an area where renderers have no excuses, can’t blame anyone on the outside, and can take the opportunity to help maximize yield and drive value to the bottom line. One area that will help maintain a normal yield is through proper equipment maintenance. Leaks and spillage are both yield killers. Every ounce of product that hits the floor will cause loss to yield. For those thinking this is obvious, take a stroll around your facility. If not a single leak is found, congratulations. The point here is to make sure the company’s production team recognizes the value of that seemingly insignificant drip of product. They must understand that fat or meal hitting the floor is the same as money hitting the floor. As an example, let’s say there is a fat leak that is approx-imately two gallons per hour. Doesn’t sound like much, right? If you run 120 hours per week, that would equate to 240 gallons of fat lost per week. Fat weighs roughly 7.4 pounds per gallon, so 240 gallons multiplied by 7.4 means 1,776 pounds of fat is lost per week. Annualized, that is approximately 92,352 pounds of fat lost per year, so that two gallon per hour fat leak translates to a loss of two tanker loads of sellable fat per year. Using an average sales price of 30 cents per pound, that equals a $27,705 loss in revenue, not to mention the additional operating cost incurred with no return and, of course, a lower yield for the facility. The final area of control involves maximizing the amount of moisture in finished meals. Often, customer specifications allow up to six percent moisture content in their finished meals, while many rendering facilities still produce meals with moisture content in the three to four percent range. Simply managing the cooking process better and raising the moisture content in finished products closer to the upper allowable limit can have a nice impact on both yield and the bottom line. For example, if a plant that produces 500 tons per week of poultry by-product meal were to increase the moisture content in that meal from an average of three percent to the maximum specification of six percent, and using an average value for poultry by-product meal of $600 per ton, that plant would see an increase in revenue of $468,000 per year (see table 1). The increase in revenue is essentially bottom line dollars and doesn’t include the energy savings realized by not evaporating the water in the process. It also has a positive impact on the yield of the facility (see table 2). Although chasing yield can be an exercise in insanity at times, it is certainly worth the effort. Although not all variables that affect final yield numbers can be controlled, renderers can control much of it and those should be the areas of focus. It is imperative that each and every person on the production team understands their role in maximizing yield and that they have the ability and tools needed to help drive that all important percentage. At the end of the day, yield is money and renderers should never lose sight of that, no matter how confusing and irritating it gets. R www.rendermagazine.com Render June 2014 11
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