Fishery products processor Fuji Suisan, based in Yamaguchi City, Japan, has developed a new automated production technology for cutting frozen tuna into squares for rice bowl (or “donburi”) dishes, the Nikkei Keizai Shimbun reported.
The company introduced a vacuum metered filling machine for sausages from German company Handtmann that allows production of three-centimeter cubes. It is carrying out test runs on the machine, and will start full-scale production in 2019. Frozen tuna is processed into individual packages with the automatic filling machine, with a small percentage of vegetable oil and fat added for viscosity.
With traditional machines, it was difficult to produce tuna cubes of a few centimeters automatically, and they did the work manually. The selling price of the donburi topping is planned to be about JPY 2,000 (USD 18.39, EUR 16.03), a reduction from JPY 2,300 (USD 21.15, EUR 18.43) when hand-worked.
The company also plans to apply the technology to the processing of other species, such as pufferfish and horse mackerel, to develop new rice bowls. The company's products are sold to the institutional trade, such as cafeterias.
