When you understand the engineering behind Challenge RMF Meat-on-Meat Massage™ technology, you understand how it delivers better product and improved ROI for the meat processing industry.
You also clearly see the difference between some companies simply making industrial food tumblers, and our company—staffed by engineers, fabricators, and installers—which understands your needs from the ground up.
Our American-made equipment puts pride into performance, saving you money on maintenance costs from the start while providing improved product quality the moment you put it on the line.
Reach out to us via phone, email, and in person to discuss our performance specs and custom fabrication. And read on for the full story on better engineering for better results.
Rethinking Meat Processing
Generic meat tumblers were first marketed as a way to tenderize meat products while increasing yield. They accomplished this to a certain point—but at a huge cost both upfront and with the downsides of product loss and diminished quality.
Generic meat tumblers employ a “lift-and-drop” design that relies on hydraulically shocking muscles. This impact action “tenderizes” the tumblers’ contents in a violent process that has all the finesse of punching, hitting, slapping, and dropping the meat.
Hydraulically shocking the muscles destroys the muscle’s structure, causing tissue fibers to disintegrate. The muscles lose their shape and integrity, creating pockets of unappetizing pulp with limited moisture absorption capacity.
Tumbling often creates a pulpy texture on the muscle surface. This can reach a depth of .25 to .5 inches down into the muscle. As a result, the muscle’s outer portions are mushy, while the core of the muscle often doesn’t get tenderized at all.
The emulsified surface of the meat can absorb high quantities of moisture, but that absorption doesn’t reach the interior. Eventually, the surface area will rub off, creating a slushy soup of fractured meat fibers and water—which increases product loss.
Meanwhile, the muscle core may have absorbed some moisture, but it will largely consist of free liquid deposited in pockets between fibers and fiber bundles. The moisture doesn’t bond to protein, so it will tend to purge prior to and during cooking.
Why do muscles become battered inside the drum of industrial food tumblers? It’s all in the flight design.
Recognizing What Makes a Better Meat Massager
Sometimes, the answer is right in front of us.
An Engineer’s Curiosity
As a young man in college in the early 1960’s, Bruce Gould worked in engineering for construction. During this time there, he recognized and appreciated how the helical flights inside the massive drum of a cement mixer worked to keep the cement blended, moist, and ready.
Plus, he saw how the drum evenly and accurately discharged product precisely to where it would be used and how cleaning it was surprisingly easy.
Keeping all of this in mind, Bruce designed an application to use a similar rotating drum. He incorporated those smooth helical flights, revolving on an inclined axis, for use in tanning leather hides.
The leather-tanning drums of that day were of the same “lift-and-drop” mechanism as meat tumblers. They caused the same kind of damage to the hides as they did to meat muscle.
His new design kept the hides moving within the drum without causing damage. Tanning solutions penetrated more deeply and evenly into the hides for a superior final product requiring less tanning time.
Seeing the Potential for Better Product
After years of tanning leather with this new machinery, he divined another possible application: the meat industry.
Sourcing fresh, high-quality cowhide brought Bruce into contact with the meat-packing industry. Once again, an engineer’s eye (and more than a little research) helped him realize he could adapt this technology to benefit the meat industry by massaging meat muscles.
The same damage done to hides in a drum with horizontal flights happened during meat processing in those generic industrial food tumblers.
The helical flights he designed didn’t beat up the product. Instead, this powerful Meat-on-Meat Massage™ technology tenderized even delicate cuts with minimal to no loss. It increased moisture and marinade absorption too, maximizing both quality and profit.
Why are horizontal flight tumblers still available?
The answer is simple: these kinds of industrial food tumblers save the manufacturer money.
Welding helical flights inside a drum requires quite a bit of technical skill. Our continuous welds ensure meat doesn’t get torn or damaged. The helical design also reinforces the drum for better durability in the long run, even under larger loads.
Straight flights are easier to weld, requiring less skill during fabrication. The manufacturers who build them can charge less for these tumblers. However, those savings quickly dissolve when the bill comes due for product loss, quality loss, and maintenance costs.
How Our Meat-on-Meat Massage™ Technology Works
In the Challenge RMF massager/marinater, the unique design of the helical flights ensures that the product continuously rolls and gently moves along a precise, curved path.
As the meat cycles through the drum, it undergoes a repeated process of compression and relaxation. The natural weight of the meat creates pressure on the lower layers, which is then alleviated as those layers rotate to the top of the load.
This consistent rolling and massaging action systematically stretches and compresses the connective tissue fibers, effectively reducing their elasticity without compromising the structural integrity of the muscle. Think of it like the controlled stretching and relaxation of a rubber band—it loses its tension over time but remains intact.
By the end of the massaging cycle, the connective tissue has softened, yielding a more tender, unbroken, and cohesive final product. Even with load capacities as large as 22,000 lbs in our MM-10 Model, the Challenge RMF massager/marinater still prevents the damage typically caused by traditional lift and drop industrial food tumblers, ensuring consistent product quality across every batch.
We Deliver Superior Industry Standards
At Challenge RMF, we partner with our clients for effective, efficient results. Our equipment isn’t as cheap as average industrial food tumblers, but they’re not built as cheaply, either. We know that the DNA of reliability and quality of our design directly affects the cost of ownership down the road.
From lower maintenance to easier and faster sanitation, a Challenge RMF marinater/massager requires less from you and your team. We help you achieve your throughput goals with high mechanical uptime, even in 24-hour, 7-day-a-week production schedules.
Every piece of Challenge RMF equipment is made in the USA with high-quality materials and precision engineering. When you include custom-construction tailored to your specs and excellent customer service, you get the most reliable equipment on the market.
Some Other Client Uses
Though Bruce created his food-processing design for use on beef, pork, poultry, and even seafood, the Challenge RMF team has helped other industry leaders improve their production lines with the Challenge RMF design.
Some of our clients use our massager/marinater machines to:
- Replace water in raisins with glycerin
- Mix frozen vegetables, granola, mixed nuts
- Process and cure multiple animal hides
- Mix hash brown casserole, soup
- Remove “flashing” from rubber parts
- Stone-wash denim.
Let Us Help Your Bottom Line Take Flight
Knowing the difference between generic industrial food tumblers and the Challenge RMF meat marinater/massager means the difference between saving a few bucks to create an inferior product—or making an investment that delivers immediate profitable rewards while increasing your reputation for quality deliverables.
Schedule a time to discuss your project and your needs with us. Our team can design, fabricate, and deliver customized solutions to maximize quality for your customers and profitability for your company.
We may even be able to test equipment at your site. But the first step is to call us at 816.765.4101 or email us at info@rmfworks.com.
Put top-of-the-line equipment to work for your bottom-line performance.
About Challenge RMF
For over 45 years, we’ve designed and built meat massager/marinaters, loaders/dumpers, cryogenic marinating technology, and more for manufacturers and processors.
Clients can reach Challenge RMF engineers and product specialists via phone, over email, and online. We’ve helped companies the world over customize and install meat massaging technology products in their facilities. And when needed, we deliver replacement parts and repair service quickly so your uptime can stay on time.
Come explore what’s possible with Challenge RMF.
