Fact Sheet: How Rinse & Chill® Works

Rinse & Chill®: Optimizing meat quality via natural cellular metabolization

At times, animals arrive at the slaughter facility in variable states of stress, with many having depleted cellular glycogen (sugar) levels.  Often the meat from these animals is of poor quality, tough, is dark in color, purges, and spoils quickly.  This is a chief reason why the consumer’s eating experience of meat is often inconsistent from mealtime to mealtime.

There are two keys to addressing and recovering the carcass from this problem to its optimal condition—and the earlier they happen, the better: 1.) optimizing ideal pH levels from the animal’s vascular system, and (2.) reducing carcass temperature more quickly and efficiently.  The Commonwealth Science & Industrial Research Organization [CSIRO], Australia’s national science agency, has shown that pH level and carcass temperature must drop together in order to deliver optimal meat quality.  Rinse & Chill® is a proven, government approved process to optimizing pH and faster chill time, plus removing an additional 40% of undesirable residual blood.

Immediately after the animal is stunned and humanely slaughtered, the Rinse & Chill® process removes more blood from the carcass than is achieved through conventional means.  This is achieved through an internal rinsing of the cardiovascular system, with a chilled solution of 98.5% water and very small amounts of sugars and electrolytes. These substances are internationally listed as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) and are also accepted by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.  The substrates in the solution are completely metabolized and the process does not leave any detectable residues of these substances in the meat.

The Rinse & Chill® solution is limited to the animal’s vascular system and drains out of the animal along with the extra blood removed.  USDA Commercial Trial and ongoing testing validates that retained moisture in the beef carcass is less than 0.5%, which is compliant with USDA standards for retained moisture.  It is a thoroughly tested, safe, effective and proven process that improves quality and safety, along with economic benefits.  The Rinse & Chill process has been used millions of times in dozens of establishments, and has an outstanding track record of safety and effectiveness. If it didn’t work, no one would use it.

We are committed to ensuring that the Rinse & Chill® process is carried out the right way, every time.  That is why we require that there be a full-time, trained and certified Rinse & Chill® technician in every customer facility.  The technician monitors the process and conducts regular task to confirm that Rinse & Chill is helping to achieve high levels of safety and wholesomeness. Add in daily remote real time monitoring and regular service visits, and you can be confident that this innovation is for real.