Hello, folks! We welcome you to the Moscow region, near the town of Kashira. By the way, it was founded in 1356. But more to the point. Chinese cars, electric cars, flying cars, all this, of course, is innovative, technological, interesting, but today we have a really "tasty" review. Behind us is Cherkizovo, the sausage factory. One of the most robotic plants in the world. What's so interesting? Review, let's go! Folks, before we go into production, some of the most interesting facts.
In front of us is a factory of raw smoked sausages, launched in May 2018, the investment amounted to 7 billion rubles ($82.7 million). Not bad! Well and most interestingly, as we have already said, this plant is as robotic as possible. If in normal conditions in such a production plant employs 700 people, then in this plant - only 160 employees. And one more interesting fact. Here they produce up to 100 tons of products, i.e. sausages, per day. Wow! They even have a helipad, look! Folks, sausage making is a seriousa business, you know. In short, stop ... A short commercial break, 55 seconds, and we go in.
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All updates in our Telegram-channel. We recommend to subscribe. Special links are already below. Now back to the sausage factory. - Look, sizes 48, 50, 52, 54. We put on a cap, a helmet, a mask and gloves. - And button all the buttons. I'll be right with you. - I need more pants. - That's some serious preparations! - All right, ready? - Yes. And just so you understand, we also did medical records. We went and had tests done.
- We didn't do them, we took them. A medical exam. - Yeah, the whole thing. - Put your gloves in your pocket for now. We'll go through the sanitary pass with you. - So all the people at work go like this? - Yes. - They even gave us special shoes.
- The green light should come on. Keep your hands under the water. That's it, it's on, now you can dry your hands. The disinfectant is applied here, the green light comes on, go through, the turnstile is unlocked. That's it. - It smells like sausage! - We're going a little bit out of order today, because first comes the clean zone and then the dirty zone. You can't go from the dirty zone to the clean zone by regulation. There it is! There's it, there's the sausage! - Let's start at the beginning. The packing area. - Impressive!
- This is where the finished sausage is unloaded. That is, a shuttle with a frame pulls up and the frame is unloaded step by step. The shuckers go into the hopper, move along the conveyor belt, and go to the provisioning. - It's German, right? - ABB, Swiss. But the integrator is Italian.
- Now the cylinder has unlocked it and the shuttle should come and pick it up. - The shuttle? - Yes. - Is it manned? - No, it's robotic. - Does it drive itself? - Yes, it does. - How many people work here anyway? - Around 160 people.
- And if there were no robots? - Then it would take about 700 people. - Oh, yeah? - There's a shuttle coming to pick it up. - Is there someone controlling it? - No. The pulsar sent a signal that the frame was unloaded and the shuttle itself was coming to pick it up. - It's picking up an empty frame. - All of it?
- Yeah, the whole thing. He's picking it up and taking it to the car wash. - How much does it weigh? - The product weighs a ton, plus the ramrod, plus the frame, it lifts about a ton and a half. - Does this thing carry a ton and a half? - Yeah. It doesn't just carry it, it weighs it. It's got sensors. - Question. How does it move? I mean, what does it rely on? Some lidars? - The whole area is covered by Wi-Fi, commands are received via Wi-Fi, and there are 70 routers around the plant. - How many? - 70.
- Okay. - That's almost 24,000 square meters of coverage. That's almost the entire area of the plant. There are multipolar magnets embedded in the floor, plus and minus. There's about 15,000 of them. - 15,000 magnets? - Yeah. - You mean they were hand-assembled? - Yes, 15,000 magnets were drilled and placed. And about 1,500 RFID tags. This is the final position. - This is where the further unloading takes place. - Here she comes, I see it.
- This is the one that was standing. So there are two frames standing here at the same time, so there is no downtime of the automatic line. One is loading, picking up, and this one is unloading. - How long have these two things been in operation here? - Since 2018. - Non-stop? - 12 hours a day, yes.
- And at night? - In season, we work at night, too. - When's your season? - At September. - Why? - Traditionally in Russia people buy sausage closer to New Year, that's why. - Since September, right?
- Yeah. - Okay, so we're set, what's next? - Let's move on. - Let's go in order. We have a little bit of a weird order today. - He puts the pocket down, the knife goes through, now it locks. The knife goes through and cuts the hinges.
This is where we look at the quality of the product. That is, this product essentially no one has seen for a month after stuffing. - The person rejects the bad sausage? - Yes. - How does he do that? - He checks visually, he spins the sausage and looks to see if there are any defects.
- Look, it's a normal sausage. - See, there's a flaw. - We're fine with it. There's a lot more! - The end customer won't be satisfied. - I agree. Where's this going? - It goes to animal feed. - How many are rejected per shift? - This is from the beginning of the shift. The time is 11:00 in the morning. That's from five tons. - Five tons? - Yeah.
- That's a good percentage, right? - Sure, it's a very good percentage. Less than a percent dropout rate. - That's great. How long does a person stand like that? - They change their line of work every two hours to keep their eyes open. - How long is the shift? - Twelve hours. - 12? Oh, wow.
- That's the standard. Two work days, two days off. - Two in two? - Yeah. - Next, the loaves come in for slicing. There are cameras here, so the positioning of the sausage is determined and the cutting takes place. - I thought there were some women slicing, I try not to take sliced, in case their hands are dirty.
- No, there is a knife here that is periodically cleaned. It happenes every 2 hours. - Do you only slice in halves? - We make both whole sausages and sliced in half at a 45 degree angle. - What is this? - The control panel. - Everything is in Russian, right? - Yes, full localization. This is Frontmatec, from Germany. - This is where the paving happens. - It's like magic.
- It's a flip-flop. The film was formed beforehand and the product is placed here. - You have a very fast pace, I see. Do people eat this much sausage? - We produce a ton and a half an hour. - It's non-stop. But it's stopped. Why did it stop? - Pause. - Why the pause? - We'll have to see. Either the reroller... I can't see the end of the line. The operator's on his way, he'll find out. Folks, imagine this situation. You get a sore ear or finger, a rash or an obscure cough, and in three days you have a vacation, non-refundable tickets, a nice hotel. Here's a tip. The app, "On the mend". An online consultation service with qualified doctors at any time.
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And here we see the product under vacuum in a sealed package. Next comes the brand labeling. - You rarely see the sausage here. It's somewhere either under glass or covered or put away or a robot does it all by itself. - Well, that was the goal. To reduce human contact with the product, thereby making it safer and guaranteeing quality to customers. - Safe sausage? - Safe sausage.
- That's cut in half, right? - Yes. The cut is packaged about 70% of the time and the whole 30% of the time. - Why that ratio? - A whole loaf weighs more. And the customer probably wants to see something small. For once, let's say, for the family cut and that's it. - So sliced is more common? - Yes. A lot more.
- That's interesting. - The trend is even for sliced. So the trend is shifting to the 100-gram packs. - Will you be making these? - We're making sliced semi-finished products. That is, we produce long loaves and send them to other plants where slicing is done. - Next we have checkweigher. - Wow.
- There's so much here! For those who love gadgets, technology, machinery. You can just sit and watch. - Not only does he glue quickly, he also weighs the product beforehand. That is, he weighs it on the scales, determines whether the product fits the weight and if it does, then he glues. - And if not? - Then he rejects it. There's a small percentage of rejects. - Where is the scale, where does it weigh? - This section right here. - This is the scale? - Yes.
- What difference does it have to make to be rejected? - 3% according to the state standard. The target weight is 225 grams. - 225 grams. What if it's not minus 3%, but plus 3%? - No problem. - It's okay, right? - Sure.
- It'll go on the manual labeling. So we'll put a sticker with the actual weight on it. And that won't go to chain customers, but to small distributors. - Moving on. This is where boxing takes place. The box is pre-formed and fed into the stacking area. And then the picker stacks it. - Picker? - Picker. - So you have two people on this whole big, complicated line? - Three. At the very beginning a person checks the quality, then a person who directly stands on the multivac and a person who corrects the loaves. Three people. - Would there have been roughly how many before? - I don't know. At this rate, I think it's a lot.
- I think a person works here for 20 minutes and that's it. The hands would fall off. - Of course. A man can't do it at this speed for sure. - Let's go around the line. - My attitude towards sausage is starting to change. For the better!
- The sausage is placed in the box and then it is sealed. That is, the glue melt is fed and the box is already closed. - It goes to the stores in such boxes? - Yes. This protects the product as much as possible. Its appearance is protected from damage and the product itself, so it does not freeze and retains its cylindrical shape. - How long can it retain its shape? - 150 days exactly. Six months. - Then we check on the scales, here are the scales, how many sausages are put in the box. That is, we check, if we did not put as much as necessary, the box is rejected.
- Sergei, is the sausage stolen in production? In sleeves or pants. You know, like in a factory where they make gold, they check. - Sufficient wages, so people appreciate their work. Why would they steal? - And the people you have working here, where do they come from? - There are three main regions: Kashira, Stupino, and Serebryanye Prudy. - This is all ready-made beauty already.
- All the palletes are bar-coded. Now we'll see the boxes, here they are. One by one they go in, then the layer goes up and the next layer goes underneath. - Are there no people here either? - No. - Only if there's something... - If there's an incident, yes. - Even your locks are electronic. - Yeah, it's a security zone. If you open the lock, everything stops here. - How long did it take to build all this? And then set it up.
- About two years. Since 2016. In 2018, we were already up and running. - Since the launch, has there been a lot of stoppage, if that's not a secret? It's clear that everything is new. - There haven't been any major stops. We've been able to get around stops either by redundancy, as I said, there are two lines, or just by extra hours of operation.
- How many similar productions are there in Russia and the CIS? - I don't think there are any. - None? - There are no similar ones on this scale and specifically for the production of smoked sausage, I think. - This thing is just a dream to move. Things to transport. It's like winding up your luggage at the airport. - But then again there's a man standing there, cutting things and doing other things. The robot does it all by itself. - Done. - And it cuts it off.
- And it's holding the next one, and this one blows it up so it sticks to the pallte. - Blowing even on purpose? - That's it, the palette is ready to ship. - That's it, we can ship it out? - Yes, that's it. - Everything is very fast at this stage. We just walked in, and then the sausage is ready to go. - Let's keep moving. - That's cool.
- What's going on here? Parking lot? - This is where the techno-Ferrari shuttle charges. - How long does it take to charge? - It can run for about eight hours. - Eight hours? - Eight hours on a single charge, yes. A full charge takes 12 hours. And when it doesn't have an active mission, it goes right away to charge. So for 15 minutes it's on standby for a mission. If it doesn't get any mission, it goes to charge. Like a robot vacuum cleaner. It only works when there are jobs. - So you can drive a Ferrari in your facility? - No. You can't drive it, unfortunately.
- It's forbidden to get on it? - Yes, it is. - Well, in theory, it's a Ferrari and you can drive it. - And it's from Italy. - You've got a sausage in it. - Yeah. - It's a frame wash. When we get the dirty frames on the package, before it's put on there will be a new one... - You have a frame washer? - Yes. - Wow! - It's turning green. See, it's after unloading. So this is the whole plant system.
Here it pulls up, here's where the washing takes place, and only after that it turns into a green frame on which the new product can be put. - And what is this? - This is the fermentation chamber, and this is the drying chamber. - Look at this. Each one of these... How much sausage do you have stored here. - It's not stored, it's matured. - It's matured?
- Yes. - Let me tell you a little bit about the stages. The first stage is fermentation. After stuffing, fermentation begins. The product loses 30% of its original moisture during the full cycle of drying and fermentation. There is no light in this chamber. Temperature and humidity conditions are maintained here. And a bactericidal lamp is switched on at regular intervals. - Is that up there? - The ultraviolet lamps are these. These are the ducts that bring warm or cold air into the chambers. - Should it be here for 25 days? - There's five here, and there's 21, yes.
When the shuttle is coming up. The gate automatically interacts with the shuttle. After the shuttle approaches the gate, there is an interchange of signals. If the Shuttle is empty, the gate opens 30% to keep the climate inside the chamber and the shuttle pulls inside the chamber. If the chamber comes in with product, the gate opens fully and he is already bringing the frame in. That is, the Shuttle not only delivers, but it also controls the percentage of shrinkage. That is, he fixes the weight of sausage at the initial filling, for example the weight is one ton.
And then he begins to carry out a certain periodicity of weighing frames, and thus calculates what percentage of the product has lost. And thus we move the product to packaging. - So everything here works automatically? - Yeah You have so much sausage hanging here. There are still a lot of chambers there and here. Do you have an approximate idea of how many loaves of sausage are around us right now? - There's about 700 tons of sausage around here right now. But that's not the maximum because it's low season.
- Here's a look, it's opened up. - The shuttle is on its way to deliver right now. We can see in real time right now that the shuttle is coming up and it's about to show up here. We're here. And here we see now, the sixteenth Shuttle is coming up and it's going to wash the frame. We can't go in there, it's a security zone. If we go over that area, the equipment stops.
- Is it all washed out? - Yes, it is. - It's amazing. - And there's steam, hot water. There's a life here. - Yeah, yeah, everybody's doing something.
- But we're the only people here; I haven't seen anybody else yet. There are mostly two people here on a regular basis. The engineer and the thermist. That's the heat treatment plant operator. We need a 225 chamber. - Where do they teach that? Where do they train you to be a thermist? Do they teach you here? - Of course they do. We train all the personnel that come to us. But in any case it is usually a specialized secondary or higher education. - We saw the fermentation chamber, there were 24 frames, but here you can fit 48 frames.
This is already a drying chamber. And remember I told you about the sensors that were built into the floor? Can you imagine, on all of the tracks, with this pitch, there are sensors in black. And this is where the RFID tags are. The smell is different, right? You can smell it. - It's still a good smell. Nice. - And all in rows. - Perfectly straight. - Not just the frame, but the sausage.
- It's getting colder and colder with each shop. Everywhere there is something going on, but no people. There's a man glimpsed over there. There's robots, there's lines, people show up once in a while, but only out of necessity. So, what do we have here? - The raw material comes in automatically from the warehouses. This is where the raw material is tipped, it goes through a metal frame. The raw material is chopped, so the blender is loaded with raw material. It is meat. And all the ingredients are mixed together. - Look, look! - There's a brisket and a ham. - Do you have any vegetarians at the plant?
- I don't know, but I don't think so. - Is there a different composition for each variety or is it the same for all? - The composition is loaded into the system, and the warehouses automatically unload exactly the composition of raw materials, which corresponds to this recipe. - This structure for what kind of sausage? - For salchichon sausage. - The one we just saw there? - Yes. - 1867.
Wow, wow. Did that meat come in? - Yes. Automatically from the warehouses, the meat arrives in crates. And it's tipped directly onto the receiving conveyor. - Where are the knives? Where's the chopping? - Here the big guillotine cuts it off, and here the disc knives work and that's what we have at the end. These cubes and strips of meat. - All the equipment is on load cells. That is, we now see the weight of each of the units in real time. Here we see that the blender is gradually loading and the weight in it is gradually increasing: 1200 kg was, already 1220.
Also here we can see the addition of salt. So we see that for the next kneading, a set of spices is already loaded with a weight of 99 kg. - What kind of spices? Salt? - Well, different spices, I can not disclose the full set. - Is this your proprietary production? - We buy different spices and mix them together to make it unique. - So it's a secret? - And here it is, the production of stuffing. - So the small pices are chopped? - Yes, loaded into the grinders, i.e. meat grinders. There is a rack, a knife and a grid with a certain diameter of section, and here we make the stuffing.
- And this is where it's already perfectly flat. - This is the flow combiner. Here is the uniform distribution on the conveyor belt, here is the opener also distributing evenly, and here is the dosage of the spices. - The smell, as I have been told, comes from the spices, that is, the minced meat does not smell.
- Meat should not smell. And this is where the unloading takes place. In parallel, the final mixer is now being loaded, and from the other mixer is unloading. - In order to mix everything? - Yes, to mix everything together with the spices. That's the real stuffing. - That's what's going into the stuffing? - Yeah.
- After the preparation of the stuffing on the filing line, this is delivered directly to the funnel on conveyors to the stuffing machines of the stuffing line. And accordingly, a sensor monitors the level of the funnel, and as soon as the level starts to drop, the minced meat is fed in. - Can I stand up? Wow! What is this? - It's a ball to toss into the funnel at the end of the mix and it pushes the leftovers through. - Really?
- Well, it's got a special attachment. So it's used to clean the pipe so that all the stuffing comes through. Before the equipment is disassembled, they throw it in and deliver the rest of the stuffing. - Have you noticed that everyone who works at the sausage factory is pretty tough? - Well, I'm not. - Where's the main Magic?
- It's called stuffing. - Stuffing? What's that? - It's a casing. This is where you soak the casing before you put it on the clipper. - Perhaps I'm asking a silly question. Am I correct in assuming that it's the stuffing that turns into a dense sausage? - That's right, through fermentation and drying. - It's just that many people think that in the process of making sausage, it's pan fried.
- You don't pan fry anything. It takes quite a long process. - That is, the meat is cut, it arrives here, then there is stuffing, it turns into sausage by itself. - Yes. Due to the temperature and humidity conditions. Well this process is similar to making cheese.
- Am I right to understand that if you take a piece of meat, fry it in a pan, we get a cutlet. And here it is, as it were, made by itself within 25 days? - Yes. - What do we have here ? - And now they're going to produce big loaves, that is 750 mm loaves, along with a clip. This is where the stuffing comes in, the stuffing happens. - Really 750mm? - Yes, that's along with the loop. - Wow, a 75 cm sausage. - Here we weigh the sausage and check the length of the loaf against the standard. And then the adjustments are made.
- Can I hold it gently? - Yes, you may. Can we take the loaf to play with for a while? - Here it is. You mean this package right here? - Yeah, that's the wrapper. Stuffing in a shell with a clip, and there's a loop on the candy bar to hang it up later. - It's cold. What's the casing made of? - It's collagen.
- And now it's hung there, then the robot takes it away and it goes through fermentation for 25 days and then we already have the sausage? - Yes, plus the packaging and you can already eat it. - And why do you have a robot here with clothes on? - Because there's an intense washing process, which means the shop runs for 12 hours, and then the whole equipment is disassembled. - How does it all work? - The protective covers are taken off, the sides are opened. - Everything? - All the way to the condition necessary for washing. And everything is moved out of the way. - I understand it takes about 200 men to do that. - No, no. Eight to ten people total. Those are the night washers.
Within 12 hours, the stuffing is completely washed off, then the foam is foamed, exposed, then the foam is washed off and disinfected. And then they assemble the equipment. - As I was passing through, I noticed that, for example, the stuffing was sticking out. I thought it was normal, it's always like that. And all this is washed and cleaned?
- Yes, every day, every 12 hours. - And this is the meat, right? - That's it moving. Let's at least start at the beginning here, not the end. - Ugh, it's chilly. What's the temperature in here? - Six degrees. - Well, it's exactly six.
- So this is where we have the raw material coming in, the truck comes in. - Is this stage one? - Stage one. Here comes the car. - Where did the car come from? - From our own enterprises. So it was either Petelino, the chicken, or ChMPZ, the deboning. In other words, it is also our own raw material. - So chicken or beef? - Pork and chicken.
- And beef? - No beef. - No beef in your sausage? - Well, there's no beef in our sausage. - I apologize for the stupid questions. - No, no, there's no beef in our sausage.
- Just pork and chicken? - Pork and chicken, yes. - We're changing the transport packaging now. You see it's on wood, on cardboard, in film. And we're changing to our shipping package now. These are plastic crates. - Plastic crates, so it's easier at later stages? - Yes, stack and freeze. - Wow! - Yes, this is where the packing change happens. - The weight on the scale is also displayed. Once the set weight is reached, the operator presses the crate registration button.
Once the weight is registered, the crate is sent to the conveyor belt. The crate comes out after unpacking, the pallet is gradually lowered and the crates are loaded onto it. And already the operator takes it to the frost chamber. - What's on top of it? - These are the empty crates that go after the stuffing. After they're washed, they go here. Here, after loading the chamber, spikes are inserted and the raw material begins to freeze. - What's it for? - So that later there will be a beautiful structure of minced meat, as we have seen.
Because, as I said, the optimal temperature for this is minus 6 degrees. And for 24 hours it stands here and freezes. - How long? - 12 to 24 hours. - Wow, a whole 24 hours. - Now we'll see where the crates are being loaded.
- Something's going around and around, something's going on, something's going somewhere, and there's no people. Oh, wow. That's a cool place. - Here he picks up the crates and moves them. - And that's what's stored, right? How long has it been stored? - It's going into production tomorrow. They took it out of the cell today after the frost, put it here, and tomorrow morning it's going to be used in production.
- So it's not storage, it's essentially part of the technology, too. The stage is like this. About 14,000 crates. - 14 000 ? - Yeah. So if we're talking chilled raw material and that, 14,000 cases. - 14,000 cases...
- Wow, that's a lot out there. - It's a little bit different crates here than the ones we saw there. There E-2 crates are standard crates, and here are special crates. - You have so many rollers, all kinds of balls and chains and motors. You have to keep an eye on it all and check it. - There's one engineer working in this area every day. - One?
- Yes. There's one here. There's two engineers in the stuffing room. There's one engineer in the termination, two engineers in the packaging. - How does one person keep track of everything? - Well, we don't take cheap employees, so to speak. Every last day of the month it's inventory. There's a deep cleaning general and there's equipment maintenance. - That's cool, that's cool. - So there you go. Folks, here's the story. Honestly, the impression is very, very positive. We have been to all sorts of factories, we have seen Chinese flying cars, but, frankly, to make sausage like that, we did not expect it.
This is the most technologically advanced, most robotic production facility in Russia and Europe. And it's not high stuff that's being made here, it's sausage. And no paper! It's very interesting. All the special links are below.
A huge thanks to the guys from Cherkizovo-Kashira for letting us in to see how it all works. It smells just right. Looking forward to your comments! See you soon! Bye.
2023-07-02