Selo has been operating in the meat processing and pet food industry for over 70 years. Over the past 25 years, Selo has become one of the world leaders in providing turnkey solutions for wet pet food preparation systems based on steam tunnel technology. The delivery programme ranges from meat preparation to packaging and sterilisation. Selo supplies both single-filling and double-filling systems for a mixture of sauce and meat pieces, with separate dosing of the pieces using a multi-head dosing unit and the sauce using volumetric dosing systems. MEAT KITCHEN Crushers - are machines designed to reduce the size of frozen meat without compromising its properties, i.e. with a guarantee of quality. Frozen meat blocks are literally broken into smaller pieces of meat. Advantages of crushers:

• Crushers are easy to clean and require minimal maintenance
• Preserving the quality of meat
• Compatibility of crushers with other production line equipment

  Selo also offers solutions for palletised products. For this scenario, a so-called pallet crusher is used, which is a large-sized crushing machine capable of processing up to 30 tonnes of product per hour, depending on the type of pallet load and the number of crushing rollers (one or two). Mixers. Customers increasingly want equipment that meets their individual requirements and are looking for machines that produce a high quality product at the lowest cost. Selo fulfils this combination of requirements by expanding its systems with high-tech mixers. Selo equipment is easy to use and extremely reliable. The range includes a wide range of mixers of various types. They can be equipped with all kinds of options, which makes this equipment perfectly suited for many technological options. Mixers are often used in the pet food industry. The mixer sizes range from 30 to 6,000 litres (other sizes available on request). Emulsifiers. For the fine grinding and emulsification of meat / pet food, Selo completes its lines with vertical and horizontal emulsifiers. An emulsifier is a machine for high-speed grinding of large volumes of meat. Emulsifiers are available in different models. Vertical emulsifiers on the market differ in terms of the discs used: meat cutting systems are based on perforated discs (fixed and rotating) instead of traditional blade discs. In addition to the very fine emulsification of products, this equipment allows for the production of finely ground products with large pieces in one process step. The easy-to-install and easy-to-dismantle cutting set is almost resistant to wear, which ensures a long service life and consistent product quality. Advantages of emulsifiers:

• Easy installation and removal of the cutting set
• Low degree of wear and tear
• Consistent product quality
• Possibility to combine emulsification of products with large pieces.

Emulsion hoppers. To ensure a continuous supply of meat emulsion to the steam tunnel extruder, a special buffer storage device is used. This device consists of a tank with a mono-pump connected to the extruder to feed the emulsion into it. The tank and pump housing are made entirely of stainless steel. In normal production mode, the pump operates at low speed. The low rotor speed reduces wear and tear inside the pump casing and maintenance costs. The hopper is equipped with a pre-installed level sensor, which is responsible for the amount of emulsion in the tank. This sensor generates signals for switching the emulsifier on and off (empty/full). To protect the mono-pump, a safety valve is provided that returns excess emulsion back to the hopper, thereby preventing overfilling. Introduction of the dye. For linear colour injection, the feed production line is equipped with a special colour injection system. This involves passing the base emulsion through this system. A part of the emulsion fed into one of the extruder inlets is injected with the colouring agent. The other emulsion stream is not coloured. This allows the extruder to produce pieces of different colours at the outlet. This is a time-tested system that provides highly efficient linear colouring without disrupting the extrusion process. Advantages:

• In-line installation
• Flow meter monitoring
• Dynamic dye mixing
• Flexibility for the production process

  In this article, we have defined the preparatory stage of wet animal feed production, namely the base for preparing raw materials. In the next one, we will look at the next stage - the preparation of wet animal feed itself.