When I was seven years old, my
mom took me to Bicol for summer vacation – remembering their
hospitality of preparing feast day after day for the whole duration of our
stay. One night, I volunteered to help in cooking, the menu was Tinolang Manok
- way out of the usual, they started from scratch – harvesting native chicken
from backyard; I had witnessed how they slit its neck, then draining blood
collected in a basin with rice grains like rituals, to manual plucking of
feathers and removing of innards. From that night to a year, I never had
appetite for Tinolang Manok.
Visiting a dressing plant for
suppliers audit, reminded me of how I murdered a native chicken in Bicol for
dinner – the process follows a standard procedure, but in dressing plant,
machines does the killing for mass production to cater Filipino’s demands for
chicken; human intervention on the process is to ensure standards to again
cater Filipino’s demand for quality chicken.
In total, a chicken undergo 24
stages to receive seal of quality for dispatch – (1) Hanging, (2) Stunning, (3)
Slitting, (4) Blood letting, (5) Scalding, (6) De-feathering, (7) Head Removal,
(8) Neck Slitting / Vent Opening, (9) Manual Evisceration, (10) Liver
Collection, (11) Intestine Collection, (12) Gizzard Collection, (13) Crop /
Proven Collection, (14) Trachea Collection, (15) Lung Removal, (16) Final
Inspection, (17) Feet Cutting, (18) Chilling, (19) Dripping, (20)
Classification of Chicken, (21) Sorting by weight (neck on), (22) Neck Cutting,
(23) Sorting by Weight, and (24) Final Weighing per Crate.
Poultry farms, houses hatchlings
in tunnel with ventilation system where temperature is controlled and it has an
automatic feeding system. Temperature is maintained at 27oC during
morning and 25oC at night. Houses can hold up to 40,000 heads. After
45 days of pampering and spoiling with feeds to obtain required weights, they
are transported to dressing plants.
Note: I had learned that
chicken manures are collected and sold to fish growers as feeds for 20 – 25
php/sack.
Live chicken are hanged in a
conveyor and will then enter the stunning area. Stunning involves soaking in
water with electricity. Manual slitting of the throat will follow and the blood
will allow to drip before the next step.
The next step is scalding in
which the dead birds will be soaked in boiling water for easy removal of
feathers.
The birds will then enter the
plucking machine to remove the feather.
The birds will then pass the head
pulling machine to separate the head.
Manual neck slitting and vent
opening for easy evisceration
Manual evisceration will then
follow. Continuous water sprinkling on the whole step of evisceration and organ
collection to remove blood and other foreign adhering materials.
Individual parts like liver,
intestines, gizzard, crop, proven, and trachea will be collected and packed
according to buyer’s specifications. Lungs will also be manually removed.
It will undergo a final
inspection to ensure that no innards are left. Feet will then be cut.
It will then fall into the
pre-chilling tub. Maintaining temperature is 18oC to 23oC
and a concentration of 30ppm (chlorine). Pre-chilled chicken will then move to
the chilling tub with maintaining temperature of 0oC to 2oC
and a concentration of 20ppm (chlorine).
Dressed chicken will then be
hanged in the drip line to remove excess water.
Sorting done to remove dressed
chicken not within the quality standards. Initial sorting by weight of dressed
chicken (neck-on) was also done. Additional cleaning will be done if necessary.
Neck cutting and final sorting by
weight
Dressed chicken will then be
stored in walk-in chiller ready for dispatch.
