Morandi joins the Marel Poultry family

This year Morandi will start processing its own birds. Catalin Moraru continues, “Doing our own processing in house was an obvious next step for us. This will give us full control over the yield and quality of our products, making us an even more trustworthy partner for our customers.” Marel Poultry will supply systems for plucking, evisceration, chilling, cut-up and deboning to handle up to 4,000 broilers per hour. Mr Moraru comments on the company’s decision to opt for Marel Poultry’s technology, “We wanted to be associated with an innovative company focused on quality and yield, which shares our priorities and beliefs. Marel Poultry convinced us that they were that partner!”

Top quality presentation 

In order to provide the best top quality fresh product, equipment has been carefully chosen for scalding and plucking. Mr Moraru explains, “For us, it was particularly important to be able to guarantee the best possible presentation of our premium Puiul Gospodarului birds. These uniquely tasting birds are very popular with our customers.” Once the products are plucked, they will be transferred to a complete Nuova automatic evisceration line. Giblets will be automatically rehung to a separate pack shackle for easy harvesting, which will be done manually to begin with. Eviscerated products will chill for just over two hours in a DownFlow+ chilling tunnel. Mr Moraru continues, “For us, chilling product efficiently for optimum shelf life is only part of the story. Safeguarding yield and color are also vitally important. We’re convinced that Marel’s DownFlow+ technology will give us the top quality, top yield products we’re looking for.”

All products rehung 

Morandi sells both sized whole grillers and a full range of cuts. For this, Marel Poultry has proposed an innovative solution. There will be no traditional whole product distribution line. Instead, all products will be manually rehung into a single ACM-NT cut-up system. A SmartWeigher and control software weigh each individual product, sort out those products destined for sale whole and select those to be cut so that the appropriate cutting regime can be chosen for each of them. Products for sale whole will be unloaded sized from the ACM-NT.

Cut and graded

Those for cutting proceed through wing cutting, breast cap cutting, split and anatomic leg cutting, thigh and drumstick cutting modules. Based on product weight obtained in the SmartWeigher and incoming customer orders, Innova PDS software will decide exactly how each product is cut. Breast caps will be deboned into butterflies and single breast fillets on an AMF-i breast cap filleting system. An off-line Marel SmartLine grader has been specified to fulfill orders for graded cut products.

Looking forward

Mr. Moraru is looking forward to having his new plant in operation. He concludes, “We’re absolutely sure that we have made the right decision for the future of our business, both in going for our own processing plant and in having Marel Poultry as our partner for this exciting new enterprise. We’ll have an even stronger base for offering the healthy products from our Romanian countryside which our customers have come to expect from us.”

About Morandi

Morandi is a second-generation family business based in Lipovat in Eastern Romania. The company was founded 25 years ago to mill corn. It diversified into growing broilers and layers and now owns four growing farms. It grows both standard broilers and slow growing birds fed on a whole grain diet. Until now, birds were processed by third parties, although cutting whole products into portions has been done in-house for some years. Morandi is run by Catalin Moraru, son of the founder, and employs some 130 people. It sells its products in its own local retail outlets and via large supermarket chains such as Mega Image and Carrefour with stores throughout Romania.

morandicom.ro