The economy continues to be on consumer minds as the US heads into the holiday season. Both at-home dining and dining out have seen prices rise year-over-year. Despite this, grocery sales were up recently, and in-person dining is expected to rise in 2023, while consumers search for products with a good value. One way food processors can provide products with a good value is by automating their production to create high-quality products at a lower cost.
Reduce Barriers to Automation with Marlen’s Industrial Food Processing Equipment
The food industry has long struggled with barriers to automation. This equipment needs to be easy to use, especially with the growing need for workers in food processing facilities. The food processing equipment also needs to be easy to maintain and repair. Automation equipment is a significant investment, so it should also be washdown ready to prevent unintended damage during sanitation. With Marlen as a process partner, food processors can automate their processing lines with state-of-the-art food processing equipment.
Service Equipment Easily with the Flexible and Tool Free DuraKut Design
Taking apart older equipment can be difficult, especially when it is difficult to find qualified technicians. Marlen’s DuraKut 6000 Slicer/Dicer solves this problem by having an innovative design that allows for tool-free disassembly. Any part that needs to be removed is either hinged or has a place to be stored safely during sanitation. With its flexible, user-friendly, and sanitation-focused design, Marlen’s DuraKut 6000 Slicer/Dicer represents a new advancement in size reduction equipment. It provides not only a robust solution for slicing and dicing a variety of products, but also helps processors solve the biggest challenges facing their operations today.
Optimize the Cooking Process with Marlen’s Continuous Thermal Products
The Marlen Spiral Oven uses super-heated steam to create an efficient cooking environment. Super-heated steam is created when high-pressure steam is introduced to the high temperature air of the burner chamber. This approach is like “super-charging” an engine: overall cook times can be reduced, and product yields can be higher than they would be if cooked in a traditional convection oven. Food processors can quickly shift production to meet demand, since the Spiral Oven’s settings can be fine-tuned to create the perfect cooking condition, and multiple recipes can be saved to quickly toggle between settings for frequent production line changes. The relatively small footprint of the Spiral Oven makes it perfect for facilities of various sizes. For these reasons, producing a product on a Marlen Spiral Oven can improve product quality and decrease operating costs through automation.
Redeploy Labor with Streamlined Production Processes
Automation can save on production costs by allowing a food processor to redeploy their workforce. As has been widely reported, there has been a labor shortage of food service and food manufacturing company employees. Having the right manufacturing equipment in your facility will address these staffing shortages by streamlining production processes, thereby reducing the amount of personnel required to produce the same amount of food products. Labor can also be redeployed because of the accuracy, consistency, and repeatability of the Marlen industrial filler. Marlen’s automated process eliminates manual labor for hand filling, which allows food plants to redeploy “hard to find” labor to other areas within the plant. Traditional processing would have these 8 to 14 team members manually fill buckets to weigh them, add or remove product to obtain the desired weight, and then hand-deposit the product into the packaging machine. The Marlen filling solution automates this process so processors can shift labor to other areas of their plant, reducing manual labor associated with industrial filling of food products.
Continuous Post-Package Pasteurization with Marlen’s Continuous Thermal Equipment
To satisfy current consumer trends regarding pouches, packs, trays, and other RTE products that need to be safe to eat and have a long shelf life, food processors need the reliability of a fail-proof pasteurization process with automated equipment and techniques. Marlen’s Continuous Thermal portfolio provides an automated pasteurization step that can be easily included in a food processor’s existing process. Since this process is continuous and automated, this provides a great benefit to food processors over batch solutions which require labor for loading and unloading the batches. The Marlen Aquaflow has a unique footprint as a stand-alone single tank system or modular multi-tank system for continuous pasteurization of post-package products in pouches. Water is pumped into the tank through a detailed sparging system that ensures a constant temperature over the product during the entire residence time. The Marlen Spiral Oven is also capable of providing continuous post-pasteurization which is perfect for post-package products in plastic microwaveable trays (CPET) like lasagna RTE meals. Since the packages maintain their pack orientation on the spiral belt of the oven, this means that products post-pasteurized with the Spiral Oven can be immediately packed off into boxes for shipping.
Marlen is Your Process Partner
Marlen has been trusted by leading food brands for over 60 years, and they assure value to their customers through the highest consistency, accuracy, and product integrity. Marlen’s teams of experts, including engineers, designers, and technical personnel, consult, collaborate, and partner with food processors around the globe to create custom innovative solutions for their food processing business. Marlen’s food processing equipment solutions are backed by a global network of certified technicians who are equipped to perform installation, start-up, preventive maintenance, emergency service, and any on-site equipment service required. With parts, sales, and service operations in Riverside, Missouri, Nieuwpoort, Belgium, and Bangkok, Thailand, we’re prepared to deliver the quality and performance expected by a true process partner. Marlen can automate your process so you can avoid piecemeal automation and process bottlenecks.
