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Statistical Model Reduces
Chicken Giveaway
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One would assume that a 4-pound
value pack of chicken breast fillets bought in the local supermarket actually
weighs 4 pounds. But it may weigh up to 13 percent more than that. This kind of
overfill proves costly to poultry processors.
Food marketing changes in the United States have led to a shift from unit
pricing to minimum-weight pricing (MWP) in some wholesale and retail
situations. Under unit-pricing procedures, products are priced at a fixed price
per unit, for example, 20 cents per ounce. Under MWP, products that meet weight
minimums may be of varying sizes—but are priced at fixed rates. In MWP, it
is sometimes necessary to fill containers beyond the stated weights in order to
meet the weight minimum. Product above the stated weight is commonly designated
as giveaway.
ARS food scientist Louis L. Young
developed a statistical modeling approach to minimize the amount of overfill in
prepackaged poultry products.
"During a visit to a poultry processing plant, I saw enormous
variations," says Young. "Processors overfill bags to meet minimum
weights. If a bag is short by 1 ounce, a whole breast fillet is needed to bring
the bag into compliance."
Young simulated a scenario of packing 4-pound packages of chicken breast
fillets. The bags contained from six to nine breast fillets. These pieces were
presorted into six weight categories, or quantiles. The mean weights of the
quantiles were 168, 209, 231, 248, 262, and 277 grams.
When the bags were assembled using breast fillets chosen from only two of the
weight categories, greater variation occurred in the bag weights—up to 25
percent overfill was noted. For a 4-pound bag of chicken breast fillets, this
means an extra pound given away by the wholesaler.
But when breast fillets were chosen from selected combinations of the six
categories, there was much less variation from the 4-pound goal than when the
fillets were randomly chosen. The amount of giveaway decreased to about 2.5
percent.
"The trick is to choose combinations of categories that minimize variation
in overall package weights," contends Young.
The statistical model indicates that presizing the product and then packaging
by specific numbers of pieces from each weight category may help reduce the
amount of giveaway, a cost savings for wholesalers--especially of high-value
products such as chicken breast fillets.
"This allows us to alter the process without having to alter
technology," says Young.—By
Sharon
Durham, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
Louis L. Young is in the
Poultry Processing and Meat Quality Research Unit,
Richard
B. Russell Research Center, 950 College Station Rd., Athens, GA; phone
(706) 546-3416, fax 706-546-3633. |
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"Statistical Model Reduces Chicken
Giveaway" was published in the
July 2001
issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
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Last Modified: 03/11/2005
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