Spain embraces ATLAS

Hijos de Juan Pujante always focuses on product quality

Pujante Atlas Live Bird Handling Solution

Hijos de Juan Pujante is a much respected name in the Spanish poultry industry. It owes this respect to its longlasting, continuous focus on achieving the highest quality level for its poultry products. To maintain and even improve this quality in today’s world of ever stricter regulations, the company had to modernize its live bird handling and anesthetization systems. The logical choice for Pujante was Marel’s ATLAS system, the first one in Spain, together with CAS SmoothFlow.

Executive Patricio Pujante says, “We were looking to replace our live bird handling system, as it had been overtaken by today’s fast changing regulations on animal welfare, sustainability and food safety. For us, however, the most important argument for considering a new supply system was being able to achieve the highest level of product quality.”

Requirements

Patricio Pujante continues, “We formulated some clear requirements which the new system had to meet. It should make for easier loading of birds in the sheds, with fewer people and less time needed for the job. Loading and unloading from the trays should cause no damage to the birds. Last but not least, the containers should be easy to maintain and clean to give us the highest standards of hygiene and prevent contamination.” The ATLAS system met all of Pujante’s requirements; its containers’ large openings allow for quick unobstructed loading, no protruding drawers allowing containers to be placed anywhere in the shed, no frame and no blind spots for thorough cleaning.

Spanish heat

Pujante’s processing plant is located in the town of Beniel, in the Levante region on Spain’s east coast. This area is known for its summer heat with birds having to be transported from farm to plant in temperatures of up to 42°C [107°F] at 50% relative humidity. In the decision process for a new transport system, one of Pujante’s key concerns was the ability of the system to cope with these extreme temperatures. It’s therefore logical, that SmartStack came out best. Even in the truck, driving in the heat, birds experience the coolest conditions possible, profiting from the largest headroom available in the industry.

Pujante ATLAS Truck

The future of stunning

In combination with the ATLAS system, Pujante opted for CAS SmoothFlow. Executive Pablo Bustamante says, “We clearly see CAS as the future of poultry stunning. It is the most humane way of anesthetization, with the greatest effectiveness and highest cost-efficiency. The risk of damage to the birds is reduced to an absolute minimum with this stunning method. The birds stay in the SmartStack tray, where they’ve been since they left the farm. They go to sleep gradually and very calmly, which reduces the risk of broken wings or bruises.” Animal well-being considerations too motivated Hijos de Juan Pujante’s move towards Controlled Atmosphere Stunning and ATLAS.

Farm to fork

Focusing closely on product quality, Hijos de Juan Pujante processes 8,000 bph [133 bpm]. With an average weight of 3.1 kg [6.8 lbs], the broilers are fairly heavy. The processing plant operates many other Marel solutions, including the evisceration department with automated giblet harvesting. “As we control the entire production process of our birds, from farm to fork, its start is extremely important to us. At the end of the day, good care of our live birds is crucial for ensuring the best product quality,” concludes Pablo Bustamante. The Pujante family has great trust in Marel’s new primary processing systems, “We were very pleased we could visit a factory in Belgium and see for ourselves the on-farm catching and loading process using ATLAS. It showed us exactly what we could expect from the ATLAS and CAS SmoothFlow systems in our own processing plant.”

Pujante Logo

About Hijos de Juan Pujante

Hijos de Juan Pujante SA is a family company, run by the “Children of Juan Pujante”. It is a vertically integrated organization, controlling the entire production process of poultry from field to table. The process starts with laying and growing farms using the company’s own feed and finishes with the production and distribution of end products. Hijos de Juan Pujante has more than 50 years of business experience in selling a wide range of poultry products with brands such as Pujante, Arteave and Manjares. Pujante’s market covers Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia and Balearic islands, even going as far as Madrid and Aragon. Pujante is present in all distribution channels.

About Hijos de Juan Pujante

Hijos de Juan Pujante SA is a family company, run by the “Children of Juan Pujante”. It is a vertically integrated organization, controlling the entire production process of poultry from field to table. The process starts with laying and growing farms using the company’s own feed and finishes with the production and distribution of end products. Hijos de Juan Pujante has more than 50 years of business experience in selling a wide range of poultry products with brands such as Pujante, Arteave and Manjares. Pujante’s market covers Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia and Balearic islands, even going as far as Madrid and Aragon. Pujante is present in all distribution channels.


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