The meat processing industry is increasingly turning to automation to streamline their operations, with remote-controlled droids being used for a variety of tasks. Cargill Inc., an agribusiness giant, is using these robots to herd cattle and prepare shipments at their plants across the country. Poultry heavyweight Wayne-Sanderson Farms is even deploying machines to vaccinate in-egg chicks and eviscerate them a few weeks later.
However, despite these advancements, there are still challenges in fully transitioning from manual labor to machine-based processes in this labor-intensive industry. In particular, the mechanization of tasks such as slicing carcasses has been progressing at a slower pace. Nevertheless, the use of robots in various aspects of meat processing has been successful overall.
