The turia canning industry utilizes its "waste" material as efficient- 

 ly as any other segment of the domestic fishing industry. 



DISCUSSIONS OF EFFICIENCY IN TUNA CANNERIES 



In the average tuna cannery up to 70 percent of plant production 

 cost is the cost of the fish and 10 percent to 12 percent is shore labor. 

 At $13.00 per case total labor amounts to only $1.30 to $1.56 per case. 

 Thus only some very drastic imprcvenent viiich would eliminate a large 

 part of the existing shore labor could make any really substantial re- 

 duction in the cost of canned tuna. The only major item of labor which 

 mi^t be reduced is that involved in the cleaning operation. Present 

 cleaning costs approximate $.50 per case. Even if a completely automatic 

 process for cleaning could be developed and this labor eliminated, a 

 portion of the saving would undoubtedly have to be paid as royalty for 

 use of the elaborate machinery developed. It is also possible that a 

 mechanical cleaning machine would give a lower yield of cleaned loins 

 than at present is obtained from hand cleaning. Both of these things 

 occurred when hand-packing was replaced by ma chine -pa eking. Labor 

 saved in all other steps of the canning operation combined, even if 

 feasible, could not amount to more than a very few cents per case. 



Potentially, more money could be saved by increasing the yield 

 of the canned product. Of the various stages where yield increases 

 are possible, the precooking stage is the one where greatest savings 

 mi^t be made. Such savings could be accomplished in some plants by 

 more uniform cooking cif the fLsh„ By sorting fish into more size 

 groups each batch would have a smaller range of sizes so that in giving 

 the largest fish in the batch the optimum cook, it would not be nec- 

 essary to so greatly overcook smaller fish. It mi^t even be worthvAiile 

 to reduce the size of precookers in some of the canneries and use more 

 of them. This would facilitate the division of fish into larger numbers 

 of size groups. 



Another possible saving in loss of fish during precooking is to 

 reduce the length of the precook. The precooking stage accomplishes 

 a number of objectives. The most important of these is making the fish 

 easier to clean. Long experience in the canneries has shown that un- 

 less the fish is given a certain minimum precooking time, rate of 

 cleaning falls off and the yield of well-cleaned loins is reduced. If 

 present efforts to develop a mechanical cleaning machine are successful, 

 and if such equipment works equally well on raw or undercooked fish as 

 on fully precooked tuna, this advantage of the precook will be eliminated, 



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