Profession slaughterer

Meat slaughterers or deboners slaughter animals, clean, cut and dress meat and fish, remove bones and prepare related food items or preserve meat, fish and other foods and food products by drying, salting or smoking.

Personality Type

• Realistic / Conventional

Related professions meat, fish

• First line supervisor meat or fish manufacturing workers
• Fish filleter, cutter, packer
• Fish products machine operator
• Meat processing operator
• Meat products machine operator
• Meat products maker
• Meat products packer
• Sausage maker

Knowledge

• Animal anatomy for food production

  The anatomy of animals, their organs and their functions, as well as the usage of these organs for food production after slaughtering.

• Warm blooded animal organs

  The difference between white and red organs of warm blooded animals and their position in the body. A white organ can be the stomach, red organs can be the heart, the liver, or the lungs. The norms to treat these organs properly.

• Cultural practices regarding animal slaughter

  Understand cultural or religious rules and traditions regarding the slaughter of animals.

• Documentation concerning meat production

  Understand legal identification documents and marks which cover animal movement, identification, and health status. Understand information in commercial books of meat production.

• Legislation about animal origin products

  The applicable legal rules on temperature, waste materials, traceability, labelling, trading, and the transport of animal origin products. 

Skills

• Control animals in distress

  Control distressed or panicked animals safely and without harm to the animal to be slaughtered.

• Operate slaughterhouse equipment

  Operate slaughterhouse equipment for slaughtering warm-blooded animals, such as stunning equipment and gut room equipment. Use the equipment according to the requirements.

• Ensure sanitation

  Keep workspaces and equipment free from dirt, infection, and disease by removing waste, trash and providing for appropriate cleaning.

• Weigh animals for food manufacturing

  Weigh and classify bodies of animals and assign the carcass to a slaughterhouse customer.

• Skin animals

  Skin animals in an appropriate manner considering the end purpose of the skin. Strip off the hide of an animal to prepare for processing the carcass, or to use the skin or fur. Use case skinning for smaller animals, where an incision is made around the feet and the skin stripped off like a sock. If a non-invasive slaughter method like gassing or beating was used on a fur animal, take care to ensure that the animal is dead prior to skinning. Use open skinning for large animals, where an incision is made along the abdomen. Use the required equipment for skinning.

• Apply requirements concerning manufacturing of food and beverages

  Apply and follow national, international, and internal requirements quoted in standards, regulations and other specifications related with manufacturing of food and beverages.

• Inspect animal carcasses

  Inspect the animal carcasses for non conformities such abscesses or contamination, and correct them if possible. Takes samples for laboratory inspection. Makes registrations of non-conformities and/or findings.

• Deal with killing animals processes

  Cope with the process of slaughtering and handling carcasses without distress.

• Follow hygienic procedures during food processing

  Ensure a clean working space according to hygienic standards in the food processing industry.

• Apply HACCP

  Apply regulations regarding manufacture of food and food safety compliance. Employ food safety procedures based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP).

• Lift heavy weights

  Lift heavy weights and apply ergonomic lifting techniques to avoid damaging the body.

• Mark differences in colours

  Identify differences between colours, such as shades of colour.

• Operate in slaughterhouse installations

  Operate in slaughterhouse installations where skinning, opening, removing organs, splitting, and carcass processing are performed.

• Split animal carcasses

  Separate animal carcasses and organs into larger subsections such as head and limbs, debone and cut them.

• Handle knives used in slaughtering processes

  Use various types of knives and cutters for slaughtering processes. Use techniques for the usage of the knives. Select the right knives for the job at hand. Care for the knives.

• Tolerate strong smells

  Tolerate strong smells expelled by the goods being processed during the production of goods.

• Tend meat processing production machines

  Operate production equipment and tools to process meat and meat products.

• Ensure animal welfare in slaughtering practices

  Respect the needs of livestock and apply the regulations regarding animal welfare in the meat and meat products manufacturing sector. Respond correctly to animal issues from unloading until stunning of the animals.

• Monitor temperature in manufacturing process of food and beverages

  Monitor and control required temperatures in the different phases of production until the product reaches suitable properties according to specifications.

• Suspend animals

  Suspend animals for food processing and move the carcasses around the slaughterhouse on an animal processing line.

• Handle meat processing equipment in cooling rooms

  Push and put carcasses in and out the cooling room as specified. Use equipment specific to this room to handle meat and meat products.

• Apply GMP

  Apply regulations regarding manufacture of food and food safety compliance. Employ food safety procedures based on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

• Prepare meat products for shipping

  Prepare carcasses, edible meat products, and non edible offal by weighing, packaging, labelling and loading on meat wagons for shipping.

• Monitor the identification of animals

  Monitor the identification of animals that come in the slaughterhouse. Assure the correct procedures for legal, quality, and administrative procedures in order to maintain identification and traceability during the manufacturing process.

• Slaughter animals

  Sever the carotid artery or stab through the heart of an animal to kill it. Allow all the blood to drain from the animal. Collect blood for food, feed or other industrial purposes.

• Cope with excrements

  Cope with excrements, strong smells, and animal waste without feeling overwhelmed.

• Cope with blood

  Cope with blood, organs, and other internal parts without feeling distressed.

• Process livestock organs

  Process livestock organs and other byproducts for meat manufacturing processes. Remove organs from carcasses and perform activities such as cutting or dividing parts, washing organs, execute specific treatments, packaging, and labelling.

• Stun animals

  Stun animals for slaughter according to the type of animals, and following regulations regarding animal welfare. Strive to minimise the incidence of consciousness recovery within time limits.

• Maintain cutting equipment

  Maintenance of the cutting equipment (knives, cutters, and other elements).

• Clean carcasses

  Remove organs, fats sticking hole, spinal cord, and diaphragm from carcasses. Perform cleaning of the carcass following established procedures in order to obtain a final carcass presentation.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB