Meat Processing Equipment

Meat processing equipment covers any powered or mechanical device used to cut, shape, tenderise, fill or form raw protein before cooking. That includes band saws for portioning primal cuts, patty makers and meatball formers for portion-consistent products, sausage fillers for charcuterie work, and tenderisers or flatteners for schnitzels and cutlets. Essentially, if it touches raw meat to change its size or shape, it falls in this category.

The range spans band saws from Sirman, automatic patty makers and hamburger meatball formers from Brice, conveyor tenderisers and flatteners from Schnitzel Master, hydraulic sausage fillers from Sirman, and a full suite of La Minerva meatball production set components and forming cylinders. Matador is also stocked within the range. That covers most of the core tasks a butchery section or protein-heavy kitchen needs to handle.

A band saw is the right call when you need to break down whole or bone-in cuts into portions — it handles the heavy structural work. A tenderiser or flattener is for boneless muscle that needs its fibres broken down or pressed to an even thickness, which is critical for schnitzel and crumbed cutlet output. Many kitchens run both: the saw handles portioning early in prep, and the tenderiser finishes the product before crumbing or marinating.

They are purpose-built for different shapes and are generally not interchangeable. A patty maker like the Brice CE653 presses meat into flat, consistent rounds for burgers. Meatball formers, including the Brice CE6539EMBF and La Minerva spherical production set components, roll or mould the mix into round portions. If your menu runs both burgers and meatballs at volume, buying a dedicated unit for each task will give you better consistency and throughput than trying to adapt one machine.

Hydraulic sausage fillers from Sirman come in a range of hopper sizes. Smaller operations filling sausages in shorter runs will find a mid-range capacity unit manageable, while a high-volume kitchen producing large batches daily will benefit from a larger hopper to reduce the number of refills per session. Most units in this range sit somewhere between roughly 35 and 55 litres of hopper capacity, so matching that figure to your batch size is the practical starting point.

It depends on the unit. Compact tenderisers like the Schnitzel Master SMK-2W-34 are designed for benchtop use and suit kitchens where floor space is tight. Band saws and larger hydraulic sausage fillers from Sirman are floor-standing units and need a dedicated footprint, ideally on a level, non-slip surface near a power outlet rated for the machine's requirements. Always check the product dimensions against your available bench or floor space before ordering.

All food-contact surfaces — blades, dies, forming cylinders, hopper walls and augers — must be fully disassembled, rinsed of meat residue, washed with an approved food-safe detergent, sanitised and air-dried before reassembly. Band saw blades and guides carry particular hygiene risk and need careful attention after every session. Follow the manufacturer's cleaning schedule for your specific unit, and train your team to treat the strip-down as a non-negotiable part of the prep workflow, not an afterthought at the end of service.

Forming cylinders, dies and meatball production set components for La Minerva units are stocked directly in this category, so you can buy the right size — 25 mm, 28 mm or 33 mm spherical sets, or the Delrin forming cylinder for FLEX, MAX and C-E HF machines — without waiting on a special order. For other spare parts and blades across the range, check the Food Prep Blades, Discs and Accessories section of the site.

Several units in this range, particularly floor-standing band saws and hydraulic sausage fillers, run on three-phase power rather than standard single-phase supply. Confirm the electrical specification on the product page before you buy, then have a licensed electrician verify your kitchen's supply matches the requirement. Ordering the machine first and discovering a power mismatch on delivery is an avoidable delay, so it pays to check this step early.

Pricing across the 83 products in this range varies considerably depending on the machine type — a forming cylinder accessory sits at a very different price point to a full hydraulic sausage filler or band saw. Chefs Depot members save off RRP on every item in the range, so signing up before you add to cart is the straightforward way to reduce your spend. Australia-wide delivery is available on all orders.