Case Studies & Testimonials

Making Baby Food Manufacturing Child’s Play

When it comes to feeding little ones, sometimes parents need a helping hand! Pre-prepared baby foods are a Godsend when time is short… and baby is hungry. Needless to say, food safety doesn’t get much more important than with products created specifically for babies. But there’s a challenge; gently steaming the product – to retain flavour, nutrients and texture – then chilling so it can be sold in parent-friendly handy pouches and fed to baby with complete confidence.

Our client, a leading producer of a range of delicious, easy-to-digest baby foods, needed a process that could handle even the most delicate laminates without either deformation or damage. Our retorts offered class-beating temperature and pressure control to deliver perfect results every time. Additional key benefits included batch reports in FDA approved formats and the specially designed trays used allowed maximum retort utilization. This resulted in saved energy as well as a reduced eco-impact for every tray produced. A win-win!

As the client was initially unfamiliar with retorting equipment, ancillaries and procedure, they were both delighted and reassured by our second-to-none customer support and assistance. With any concerns about ensuring the very highest quality for their customers allayed, they were able to easily comply with ever-increasing reporting requirements.

Ready Steady… Ready Meals

From juicy chicken curries to rich and saucy fish dishes, comforting potato topped recipes and tasty pastas, extended shelf-life ready meals have become a modern necessity for many. In fact, the process used in this rapidly expanding area of chilled meal production often exceeds the quality of standard chilled foods – it also offers major benefits such as the elimination of salt, sugar and other artificial ingredients usually used for preserving shelf life. This allows longer time in distribution and display while fully traceable production procedures ensure a high level of product consistency.

Reassured by our wide-ranging experience and the unparalleled quality of our machines, the client understood that combining the highest levels of automation with accurate process control would guarantee perfection of processing across an extensive range of supreme quality, ultra-convenient ready meals.

The fully traceable production procedures and first-class consistency between batches was fully ensured, providing a clear path to the company’s further growth in the sector.

Ricely Does It!

In recent years, a growing appetite for rice-based dishes and a clamour for convenience products has led to a surge in the demand for cooked rice pouches. Having systems in place for all types of plastics and rigid containers for ethnic products - including ambient and chilled pasteurised meals and sauces we were fully aware of, and prepared for, the challenges facing this type of food production.

As a supplier of quality dried rice and noodle products to retailers across Europe, our client wanted to break into the booming market for ambient cooked rice products. As it was their first venture into this sector of the market, the client needed a retort process with a proven track record of cooking this type of product.

With our expertise, the client achieved precise temperature and overpressure control, essential for processing both flexible and semi-rigid containers. The rice was gently agitated during cooking to ensure consistent processing… delivering a flawlessly fluffy product every time.

The range of quality pouched products are now stocked in a variety of retailers, which is paving the way for further exciting new product introductions.

Dreamy Desserts, Chilled To Perfection… For Longer

Who doesn’t love a creamy rice pudding? However, this sweet and comforting dessert is a notoriously difficult product to keep stable longer than 5-7 days under chilled conditions. As you can imagine, the combination of warm rice and warm milk produces the ideal cocktail for bacterial growth!

Looking to produce a new luxury range of chilled dessert products including a creamed rice pudding, our client came to us for advice…. The steam process of a retort – used with either chilled or ambient water-cooling - significantly extended the shelf life of their cooked products. This steam/air process has proven extremely popular over the last few years in chilled food installations for both CPET trays and retail/food service pouches.

But that’s not all; a short pasteurisation process combined with a rapid chill afterwards not only tripled the pudding’s shelf life but actually complemented the creamy consistency and unctuous texture of the dessert. The client also specified an important additional requirement - that a sprinkling of nutmeg on top of the pudding also remained undisturbed… and we were only too happy to oblige!

The luxury dessert range is now on sale and continues to go from strength to strength.