Kebab is a well-known Turkish dish which Poles have fallen in love with as well. The most popular kebab on the Vistula river is the Doner kebab cooked on a vertical rotisserie.
Today we are going to see the production process of kebab and that is why we visited Damak, a production plant in Grzędy which has three production plants in Poland.
We produce lamb, beef and poultry kebab. We are able to produce nearly 100 tons of a finished product on a daily basis.
We enter the production plant together with the employees. Uniforms are obligatory. When passing through the lock, the employees disinfect their hands and put on their protective clothes.
Now we can begin to work. The raw material enters the plant straight from the slaughterhouse. The quality control department checks the amount of meat and its temperature which on reception should be 4oC. The purity of the containers in which the meat is delivered is also monitored and verified.
Once the quality of the raw material is certain and gets verified, the material can reach the production line. Let’s start with the meat partitioning.
We have the most modern machine park. During its construction, we carefully selected the technology in order to guarantee not only the highest quality of our products, but we also wanted to protect the environment.
After dividing the chicken carcass, a chicken leg must be taken out of the chicken quarter. The chicken quarters reach the production line and at first the employees hang meat on transport hooks.
In the first processor, the lower back is automatically pulled out and thus, we get an anatomical thigh which is later trimmed.
The remaining part of the chicken is trimmed on the next line to get a double chicken breast.
Once the meat has been partitioned, it goes to a tumbler machine. It is important to use appropriate spices that will affect the taste and aroma of kebab. The spice mixes used at Damak are a special composition which is their trade secret.
The process takes about an hour and later the meat filled with spices is placed and shaped. It is laid out on the table from a container and employees fill in its pieces on the racks. The kebab height ranges from 40 to 70 cm.
Then, the employees cut the kebab sides, check its weight and form its final shape using a stretch foil. This is how the so-called bar is created.
The shaping process is very important as it guarantees that kebab will be easily cut in the catering point preparing a kebab dish. Finally, a label is attached to the bar which includes such information as: the composition, date of production, expiry date, and the weight. The production plant, DAMAK, produces such products as Harika, Bereket, Turkuaz, Beste, Efe and Anatolia.
The shaped and formed raw poultry kebab enters the shock chamber for 24 hours, where it is deep-frozen at the temperature -40oC. There are 3 shock chambers in the production plant. Each can hold 20 tons of kebabs.
Once frozen, the bars are stacked on a pallet and sent to the warehouse, where they will be stored at the temperature -25oC.
The production plant in Grzędy produces 11 flavours of kebab and not only their raw versions, but also roast ones. Products are sold to over 30 countries around the world.