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One of the world’s leading suppliers of collagen casings for food, used by its customers in the production of a wide variety of sausages and other meat products, is investing £50m in a new manufacturing plant in Nantong, near Shanghai, China.

Work on the new site began early this year with full commissioning scheduled for 2015. The new factory forms part of the company’s expansion strategy in line with an increasing world demand for edible collagen casings, up 7% to £650m in 2013.

Collagen casings are mainly produced from the collagen in beef or pig hides, and the bones and tendons. It can also be derived from poultry and fish. They have been made for more than 50 years and their share of the market has increased progressively over that time. The cost to produce sausages in collagen is significantly lower than using gut due to higher production speeds and reduced labour requirements.

A key feature of collagen casings are their stability and consistency, meaning that customers can calibrate their processes very precisely and so produce more sausages quicker whilst minimising wastage.

The latest generation are usually more tender than natural casings whilst maintaining the “snap” or “bite” of the latter. They are also permeable to smoke, another prerequisite in the manufacture of cured sausages.

During the manufacturing process, large metering pumps are used to deliver additives such as water and glutaraldehyde. It is essential that this delivery be precisely controlled and ABLE Instruments & Controls Ltd were asked to assist with the flow measurement requirements of the process. Having assessed the application, it was concluded that the high pressure, high precision blending procedure was best monitored using Coriolis mass flowmeters and ABLE subsequently supplied 20 of their industry proven Rheonik RHM015 to the project.

Coriolis meters are just one flow technology available from ABLE. Their portfolio also includes Clamp-On Ultrasonic, V-Cone, Multi-Phase, Flare Gas, Magnetic, Turbine and Energy flow meters.

For more information, please contact ABLE Instruments on +44 (0)118 9311188 or by email: info@able.co.uk