Machines could minimise waste and improve profitability, not to mention banish people’s blood, sweat and tears from chicken factories - but what about jobs?
When you sit down and tuck into a chicken curry, the last thing you’ll think about is how that juicy breast fillet was extracted from the bird’s carcass. You’ll probably have heard horror stories about hens being caged inhumanely in battery sheds, and poor health and safety standards leading to salmonella contamination, but not so much about the process of deboning.
The boneless, skinless chicken breast industry is big business. In the US alone, the average person consumes about 20 pounds of fillet per capita; this is expected to rise to 30 pounds by 2030. To meet this demand, it is thought that the industry will need to produce 10bn pounds of fillets annually. The process of deboning requires skilled hands, but the task can be grim and repetitive.
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