From AI to robot butchers, automating the meat packing industry is not cut-and-dried

Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics are reshaping many parts of the economy, and experts say the meat-processing sector could benefit from improved technology to overcome labour shortages, improve food safety and remain competitive against alternatives like plant-based proteins.

Change has been slow, but companies are making strides, such as using robotics to transport heavy animal carcasses within a facility, to stack and move boxes for delivery and to optimize transportation loads to reduce the amount of trucking. 

The meat processing sector has always been labour-intensive and filling those positions is a constant challenge. Some in the industry see technology as the answer to alleviate labour pressures, while others envision robots assisting workers, not replacing them.

One technology that could reduce the labour requirements of a facility is being developed by Michael Ngadi, a bioresource engineering professor at McGill University and the founder of MatrixSpec Solutions. For the last 10 years, he's developed a tool to detect how much fat or marbling is in a piece of pork. North Americans generally prefer lower fat, while some Asian countries favour higher fat.

Currently, workers are trained to assess the amount of fat on the processing line, said Ngadi, but a combination of machine learning and AI could be more reliable.

"If you have someone who has worked eight hours or so just looking at pork products, at some point, naturally, the efficiency of that person might actually decrease. Or just simply someone having a headache or a bad day and you can have those issues," said Ngadi.