Value-added products yield more profit
You probably know them. Mussels, shucked fresh (raw) with a knife and one of the (empty) shell-halves removed, so-called “Moules parquées”. The remaining shell-half, now containing the raw meat, is provided with a sauce of chopped butter, garlic and white wine, grated cheese on top and grilled for a couple of minutes. Delicious! Advantage? Besides that virtually all taste, smell and nutritional value being retained, the one remaining shell-half too is sold as an attractive, natural packaging. A labour-intensive way of processing if carried out manually and from an economic point of view, the revenues of such a manual way of processing are marginal.

The Franken Infrared system
For this form of value adding Franken has developed and manufactured an innovative method of processing with almost identical results, using half the number of employees. Primarily for New Zealand, but more and more in Europe and South America too, this half-shell product starts gaining popularity and the market demand increases.

The infrared process
Up till now the infrared process has been applied to mussels only. Usually the largest mussels from fresh processing are used. After conditioning, homogenising and debyssing the product, one shell-half is subjected to a short infrared treatment with a certain wavelength. The result is that the attachment of one adductor is “cooked loose”. The ligament (hinge) of the shell itself will open the shell. After a short period of cooling down, the empty shell-half is manually removed. The other shell-half, filled with meat and the adductor still firmly attached, can now be further processed.