Danish pensioner looking to revolutionise European sausage production
From medister to hot dogs, there’s no denying the Danes love their sausages.
But few of them probably know that Danish sausages are sent thousands of miles to China and back again before ending up on grills or in frying pans, because it is economically viable to send pig intestines to China to have them hand-measured before transporting them back to Danish for casing production.
Well, 73-year-old Danish pensioner Jan Pedersen has invented a machine that he hopes will revolutionise the European sausage market.
Pig intestine are 20-22 metres long and vary in width, so the diameter needs to be measured in order for the sausages to look alike – and a Chinese worker spends about 90 seconds measuring one intestine’s diameter by hand.
Pedersen’s machine can cut that time down to just 10 seconds and, according to his calculations, slaughterhouses can save upwards of 70 percent of the costs associated with sending the intestines to China.
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Local and more sustainable
The Dane, who retired after working for 40 years in the butchering industry in Denmark and Poland, also contends that his machines will significantly reduce the climate footprint involved in transporting the intestines to China via container ships. It will also generate more jobs at home.
“We need to bring those jobs back home again. There is no reason that it needs to take place on the other side of the world,” Pedersen told DR Nyheder.
“A container ship requires one litre of bunker oil to travel 4.5 metres. And there are a bloody lot of 4.5 metres to China and back.”
Pedersen expects his company, Proxima Centauri, to yield a profit of 83 million kroner by 2023 and 300 million kroner by 2026. He has already received funding support from the Danish state and the EU.
Currently, he is running a pilot program and the finished machine will be ready for the Danish slaughterhouses next summer. Several advanced agreements are already in place.
