Tempering of vegetables

Former process

The company, located in England, is a subsidiary of a large international group with around 16 000 employees. It sells products such as pies and quiches and needed a quick and effective solution to defrost the vegetable ingredients.

Before using a microwave solution, the customer used to place the frozen products in a defrosting room for 24 to 48 hours. This method was far from ideal as it took too long, generated significant drip-losses, but most of all,  products were undergoing strong oxidation so were losing their fresh aspect and colour.

Customer request

The company was looking for a solution to quickly defrost IQF vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, tomatoes or red peppers, to incorporate them in its ready meal recipes. The customer needed to temper boxes of 10 kg of vegetables rapidly and without any organoleptic loss.

Solution proposed

To solve the customer’s problem and increase the efficiency of the tempering process, SAIREM recommended the AMW200 batch tempering oven with 2 sliding tables. This microwave solution is perfectly adapted to the customer as it allows for quick changes from one product to another with the recipes integrated into the software.

The speed of the process, under 10 min, means that all issues such as drip-loss and taste or color loss are prevented.

Key benefits

• Quality: the products are more attractive, they keep their shape, look fresh, with bright colors and a better taste.
• Safety: there is a major improvement in product quality and bacteriological safety.
• Speed: the tempering time is considerably reduced from hours or days to several minutes.