Calgary, AB (September 3, 2003) - The Air Chamber Crab Processor represents a "sea change" in technology that has helped Canada's crab-processing industry more than double in size. Tim Edmonds of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has won a prestigious $10,000 Manning Innovation Award for his machine, which provides a cost-effective, safe and healthy method of removing meat from hard-shell segments of crab.

Edmonds, manager of Product Engineering at InNOVAcorp, a provincial Crown corporation, developed the Air Chamber Crab Processor (ACCP) after a Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture and Fisheries official asked for help with a major health problem affecting the industry.

Many workers, using machines that rely on a burst of compressed air to blow the meat out of Rock and Jonah crabs' legs, were getting ill with an asthma-like respiratory condition called "crab asthma."

"People were getting sick and it was hurting the industry and preventing it from growing," Edmonds says.

Research revealed that the manually operated machines were exposing workers to fumes and microscopic bits of crab meat (including a gaseous protein), produced by the bursts of compressed air.

Building from small working models, Edmonds engineered an automatic crab-processing machine designed to remove the meat quickly and efficiently, without exposing workers to any health hazards.

His ACCP machine forms a sealed air chamber using a special rubber-topped belt and a flexible rubber lip seal over the back of each crab leg. Once this air chamber is created, compressed air is forced into the chamber to gently push out the crab meat in a controlled and safe way.

The ACCP reduces labour costs by up to 85 per cent compared with hand-picking crab leg meat, and it reduces labour costs by 66 per cent compared with manually operated meat-blowing machines.

There are now 47 ACCPs operating in Atlantic Canada as well as the U.S., Scotland, Ireland and Norway - representing a substantial percentage of the global market for these crab leg meat processors.

Outside of Canada and Maine, the machines are marketed by Charlottetown Metal Products.

Edmonds, employing local machine shops and suppliers, builds every machine right in Dartmouth, often customizing components depending on the crab species or the shell segment being processed.

Automation is crucial to boost productivity and keep the cyclical fisheries industry competitive, Edmonds notes. "In a number of cases, it would not be economically feasible for fish plants to process the small Rock and Jonah crab, unless they had the most modern equipment to do the work."

Robert Weld, manager of engineering at Clearwater Fine Foods Inc. in Bedford, N.S., agrees that without Edmonds' labour-saving innovation, "this industry would not have developed this way."

Edmonds has won the $10,000 Manning Innovation Award. Since 1982, the annual Manning Awards program has encouraged and recognized leading Canadian innovators with more than $3 million in prize money. This year's four major winners, who will be honoured at the annual gala dinner Oct. 3 in Halifax, will share a total of $145,000.