Reducing the Energy Intensity of the Process of Grinding Raw Meat at Restaurant Enterprises

The article is devoted to the optimization of the design parameters of the cutting working parts of the knife-lattice type shredders, which are used in restaurants, with the aim of reducing the overall energy consumption of the process of grinding food raw materials. Today, the processes of grinding food raw materials with the help of shredders of the knife-grid type have found wide application at enterprises of the restaurant industry. Such minced meat products as cutlets, meatballs, casseroles, schnitzels, zrazy, rolls, cabbage rolls, dumplings, chevapchichi, dolma, khinkali, manti, pleskavitsa, cannelloni, klopsa, Dutch croquettes, Italian polpette, Japanese tsukune and many others is an integral component of the world cuisines and the menu of various restaurants in Ukraine and abroad. Despite the diversity of minced meat culinary products in restaurant technologies and the rather «respectable» history of equipment for obtaining minced meat, grinding processes are quite energy-consuming and require research on their optimization. This article also substantiates the use of meat raw materials with a high content of connective tissue for food purposes and solves the problem of significant energy consumption during the implementation of the process of grinding meat raw materials with increased strength indicators in cutting machines (meat grinders). The article also defines the directions for optimizing the structural parameters of the hardware design of this process with the calculation of its reduction in energy intensity. The proposed constructive solutions refer to the improvement of the cutting working parts of the knife-grid type shredders, the work of which is a determining factor in relation to the productivity of the blades and affects the overall energy consumption of the grinding process. The article also presents the developed technology for manufacturing optimized cutting working devices. As a result of the use of modernized cutting working parts, a reduction in the specific work of cutting meat raw materials with a high content of connective tissue was obtained, which in general leads to a decrease in specific energy consumption by 10...18%.