European food processors are being welcomed to a fully equipped kitchen in the UK which claims to ‘kick the tyres’ on the latest cooking and freezing high-volume, high-speed equipment on offer in the US.

Located just outside Ashford, in the UK, the newly opened kitchen allows European food processors to test a variety of cooking and freezing options, therefore optimising the equipment and the process.

The facility includes a micro spiral oven, equipment that can smoke a ham in a minute, infrared pasteurisation equipment that can extends shelf life by more than 30% in less than 60 seconds and a new machine known as the Tunnel of Fire, that can flame roast chicken in 30 seconds.

The Tunnel of Fire was developed last year by Unitherm Food Systems – the company behind the new kitchen – for a Belgian food processor looking to maintain the consistency and quality of traditional flame-glazed hams.

“The future of food processing machinery purchasing is going this way, where the customer can demand to go into a kitchen and actually try out their product on the machinery,” says David Howard, CEO of Unitherm Food Systems of Bristow, Oklahoma. “Only then can they feel confident that the equipment best serves their operational parameters and expected results.”

Unitherm decided to duplicate the success of its 2,300sq m kitchen at its US plant, in Tulsa, in order to make such facilities more accessible to European food processors.
“Our European customers want to try out their products on the machines,” says Howard, a European expatriate. “Having a test kitchen open in Europe will help move the industry forward with US technology that has helped some of the most successful food processors in the world.”