Townsend Engineering Company
In the 1940s, Ray Townsend worked at his father's blacksmith shop and was on occasion asked to do custom fabrication at the local meat packing plants in Des Moines, Iowa. During his many visits to the plants, Ray observed that it took many people to remove the skin from various pork cuts.
He began to work on an idea for removing the pork skin (rind) mechanically. Originally his only concern was to make it easier to remove, thus reducing the costly labor. However, Ray soon recognized a much more important benefit to the processors - better yields! In 1946 the Townsend Model 27 Pork Skinner was introduced to the world. It was received with great acclaim. Ray Townsend received the American Meat Institute's Award for having made the greatest contribution to the Meat Industry in the past 10 years.
Today's standard of the industry for open top skinners is the Townsend Model 7600. Features that weren't even thought of , nor possible, in 1946 make the 7600 the Industry Leader.
The Townsend Model 9000 conveyorized skinner has been developed with the same tradition of innovation.
The First Automatic Sausage Linking Machine Was Introduced to the World in 1962 By...Townsend Engineering!