Continuous pasteurisation of pouches and trays

A continuous pasteurisation system for ambient pouch and tray packaged food has the potential to deliver product at a lower cost per unit than cans. Compared to current batch-based systems, users can expect increased output and huge savings in water and energy usage.

UK company Continuous Retorts (CRL) has several international patents for the technology and has now successfully built a full-scale development rig that enables flexible pouch and semirigid plastic tray packaged food to be continuously pasteurised or sterilised rather than in batches - a slow, costly and inefficient manufacturing process. Known as a ‘continuous retort’, no such equipment is currently on the market for these relatively new and rapidly growing pack types and CRL is now conquering the remaining technical milestones before they can go into full commercialisation.

Premium pouched and tray-packaged food is rapidly replacing tin cans and glass jars in our supermarkets due to their many benefits. The fact that you can microwave the food in these containers has significant appeal for the time-pressed consumer.

Crucially for the manufacturing industry, once this new concept technology is available, flexible pouch and semirigid tray-packaged food will be produced at a similar or even lower cost per unit than canned food, with up to 1200 packs being processed per minute through a single machine that uses around 50% less energy, in only a quarter of the factory floor space compared to the same output with batch retorts.

In addition, as the process uses a closed-loop cooling system, the enormous quantities of water lost through the current batch production process will be virtually eliminated, further reducing production costs and making the process significantly more environmentally friendly than other options on the market.

Continuous Retorts’ founder and Managing Director, David Lambert, who also founded International Cuisine Limited (ICL), which processes over 1 million servings of food every week in a purpose-built facility in County Durham and employs more than 500, said: “When I developed the retort process in ICL, the only units available in the marketplace were batch retorts. Cost of manufacture was a major headache, and that was with relatively low energy costs by today’s standards. Despite 24 years passing since I founded ICL, the retort manufacturers have still been unable to develop continuous systems for microwave packaging so I decided to design a new system from scratch - this new technology has enabled CRL to be created and we expect to be selling complete processing lines in Europe, US and Japan by 2013.”

Nick Edgar, Investment Manager at IP Group, which is involved in financing the venture, commented, “Continuous Retorts has created a groundbreaking manufacturing process that looks set to revolutionise how many players in the food industry do business. Research shows the system will fill a large gap in the marketplace and the fact that labour and energy inefficiencies are stripped out will be of huge appeal to manufacturers who are fighting rising costs. The level of interest from the industry in terms of commercial partners is already very strong.”