Steamy success in Australia
The first Steam Infusion system has been installed in Australia following the announcement of our partnership with Process Plant Network (PPN) in early 2019. The patented cooking technology has helped PM Fresh, an Australian food manufacturer, grow its high-quality sauce business with lucrative new contract wins.
As seen in What’s New in Food Technology & Manufacturing Magazine
Background
PM Fresh, a proudly Australian, privately-owned company with extensive experience and expertise in the fresh food industry, specified multiple Steam Infusion Vaction™ pumps to support their production following a new contract win to make fresh chilled sauces. They needed cooking technology that could increase production capacity within their existing facility while maintaining the high standard of product that their customers had come to expect.
Whilst other technologies were considered, PM Fresh deemed Steam Infusion a far superior process, as it met the company’s requirements by enabling the production of top quality products without any burn-on contamination. With a complicated full line refit, the installation was completed successfully in coordination with PPN and other component suppliers to meet the tight timeline for product launch. In addition, OAL’s development chef flew in from the UK to support with recipe development and commissioning of the Steam Infusion system.
Challenge
At the end of 2018, PM Fresh began to reassess its existing system capability following a new contract win to supply fresh sauces under licence for a global brand. PM Fresh was facing three key challenges:
Production capacity: the existing steam jacketed cooking kettles in the facility couldn’t meet the cooking throughput required. A single batch of sauce was taking over 120 minutes to cook because the steam jackets had to be run at a lower temperature to maintain the quality of heat sensitive products, resulting in time and volume constraints.
Product quality: this was of the highest importance to both PM Fresh’s customer and the end consumer. PM Fresh needed to remove the risk of burn-on and quality issues, particularly with delicate cream-based sauces, while still increasing production throughput.
Timescales: as is often the case in the fast-paced food industry, a solution was needed fast; within 10 weeks!
Given these challenges, PM Fresh’s key objectives were to bring cooking times to under 60 minutes on all of their recipes to increase production capacity and deliver burn-free soups and sauces to ensure that their customer was happy with the product quality – all by the tight deadline set by their customer.
Solution
Following a review period assessing Steam Infusion against other technologies, PM Fresh came to the conclusion that out technology was the best solution to meet their objectives thanks to a number of unique advantages that our solution can bring.
The Steam Infusion processing environment adds more energy into products faster as steam is condensed into the product within the Vaction Pump ensuring a highly efficient energy transfer, cutting cooking times compared to steam jacketed vessels.
The gentle way in which Steam Infusion cooks products, despite the high velocity of the steam, ensures that heat sensitive products are protected during cooking. The Steam Infusion Vaction Pump cooks from the centre of the vessel with no direct contact surfaces for liquid products to burn on to. What’s more, the partial vacuum vapour phase coupled with the short residence times, prevent exposure to excess high temperatures, eliminating burn-on contamination.
With on-the-ground support from OAL, the team managed to meet the product launch date. OAL’s processing experts designed the system and then PPN retrofitted the Steam Infusion cooking lances into multiple cooking vessels, as well as installing the recipe control system and steam supply to complete the project. OAL Development Chef, Chris Brooks, flew out to Australia to support the installation and assist the PM Fresh team in the development of their recipes so they could optimise the results that Steam Infusion achieves, giving the team confidence to develop future recipes independently.
Key results
Working closely with PM Fresh, OAL and PPN were able to more than double the cooking capacity of existing vessels by reducing cooking times by over 50 per cent and decreasing the cleaning requirements thanks to the lack of burn-on on the vessels. Product quality has not only been maintained, but even improved due to the enhancements that Steam Infusion can bring, meeting one of the customer’s key objectives.
“Given the time constraints, we relied heavily on the expertise provided by OAL to meet both the product specifications and the hard launch date. It was our pleasure to work with Chris Brooks who came all the way from the UK and we appreciate the crucial role of OAL in helping our business to achieve a successful product launch.”