Marlen Blog

How Food Processors Save with Marlen Spiral Chilling Equipment

Consumers in the United States are eager to return to pre-pandemic lifestyles, and so many are starting to gather with friends and family members once again. Alongside this trend, they are increasingly interested in creating their own chef-prepared, restaurant-style meals at home. As the summer holidays come around, convenience ready meals and kits are high in demand. This comes at a time when food processors are struggling to hire workers. Many food processors caught in this labor challenge are making strategic decisions to automate certain... Read More →

Key Solutions for Optimal Industrial Sous Vide Processing

At-home dinner solutions featuring fresh meal kits delivered to consumers’ doorsteps saves time while allowing for the preparation and cooking of great meals – all while upgrading one’s lifestyle. These food boxes contain home meal kits tailored to one’s preferences and dietary requirements while allowing individuals to become at-home chefs with little effort. But it’s what is in the meal kits that keeps these “chefs” connected with a particular brand/service. Many processors are turning to sous vide dishes to maintain their competitive advantage and it’s... Read More →

Food Plant Hygiene and Handling Equipment for Safer Food Production

Improving food plant efficiency, hygiene, and safety throughout food production facilities is made easier when operations has access to durable, cleanable, efficient, ergonomically-designed systems that complement their food processing lines. Whether processing meat and poultry, plant-based foods, fruits and vegetables, pet food, snack foods, bakery goods or fish and seafood, innovatively designed stainless steel food plant hygiene and handling equipment is needed to minimize the chance of bacterial contamination. What type of stainless material is used to manufacture food handling & plant hygiene equipment? Stainless... Read More →

Industrial Surface Treatment Equipment Tips and Tricks

As the weather changes and the markets reopen with less-restrictive rules on wearing masks, consumers in the US are starting to dine in restaurants more often.  Also, with the onset of kitchen fatigue, consumers are buying evermore ready meals from grocery stores.  This has resulted in a higher demand for high-quality ingredients which is being felt by food processors that are struggling to rehire workers.  This has signaled a shift in priority for food processing companies.  Many food processors have decided to make workflow improvements... Read More →

Summer Eats – and the Continuous Cooking Equipment that Makes Them Possible

Summer is on our doorstep, and that means consumers are looking for fresh, bold flavors to complement the season.  In addition, US consumers are increasingly interested in premium food options: restaurant-quality food which can be easily prepared at home for socially-distanced entertaining during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Continuous cooking equipment makes these premium Summer eats possible and satisfies consumer demand for fresh, bold flavors. Flame Grilled Summer Favorites Impress consumers this summer with various flame grilled proteins and vegetables.  For instance, flame-grilled chicken breasts and grilled... Read More →

How Automatic Filling is Safer in a Food Processing Plant

If your food processing plant is manually filling shredded pork, chicken, beef, surimi, flaked tuna, or naturally fermented veggies, it is likely that you are losing profits related to the amount of manual labor required. Additional profit losses can be attributed to product giveaway due to inaccurate weights. Marlen’s filling equipment can automate the filling process while increasing weight accuracy. Marlen’s solution reduces the need for physical barriers such as plexiglass dividers that take up valuable floor space to separate meat and poultry processing workers... Read More →

Benefits to Continuous Thermal Heating in Spiral Ovens

It comes as no surprise that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have shifted to cooking more meals at home. Consumer demand for meat has increased: recent reports show that 43% of Americans buy more meat than before the pandemic, and nearly all U.S. households purchased meat in 2020, due to preparing more homecooked meals. After a year of dining in, U.S. consumers have begun experiencing kitchen burnout, and this has changed what kinds of meats consumers are looking for. Americans are now more likely... Read More →

Steam Energy: Continuous Thermal Heating in Spiral Ovens

The spiral oven cooking process occurs in a single oven enclosure on a continuous conveyor belt which conveys food upward through multiple, circular tiers. Due to the box-shaped design of this single enclosure with relatively narrow openings for infeed and discharge, the Marlen spiral oven offers effective utilization of the amount and kind of heat energy contained within that cooking space. One interesting way advanced spiral cooking technology maximizes product yield and capacity is by using super-heated steam to dramatically increase the heat energy in... Read More →

Delivering Chef-inspired Summer Meals with Industrial Flame Grilling

With the summer months just around the corner, consumers will be on the lookout for fresh flavors and bold dishes with flame-grilled entrees and side dishes. Many processors turn to industrial flame grilling to add value to processed meats and vegetables – ingredients used in a variety of summer recipes. Marlen’s executive chef, Justin Donaldson, gives his take on summer meals processors should promote via recipe sharing whereby flame-grilled meal components are utilized. Fresh Takes on Summertime Salads With some flame grilling, the traditional dressed... Read More →

Production of Quality Pizza Toppings with a Marlen Jet Knife Forming System

Marlen’s Jet Knife is an attachment designed for use in conjunction with our Vari-Kut Inline Grinder particle reduction system. The jet knife is ideal for forming individual meat or alternative plant-based meat particulates such as pizza toppings, meatballs or other products used in chili, soups and pet food. Jet Knife Method of Operation Using our Marlen OPTI Series vacuum pump, the meat or plant-based formulation is pumped through the Jet Knife whereby it passes through a forming plate. The plate can be configured with one... Read More →

The Advantages of Industrial Spiral Cooking

Spiral Ovens such as those developed and manufactured by Marlen convey food upward by a continuous conveyor belt that travels in multiple, circular tiers within the oven enclosure. Spiral cooking provides several benefits over cooking in linear ovens or traditional batch ovens. For example, a minimal footprint, versatile heating, increased product yield, greater product consistency, and improved energy efficiency are all advantages of Marlen’s spiral oven cooking solutions Because of these benefits, industrial spiral cooking has been adopted as the continuous cooking system of choice... Read More →

Meat Portioning Made Easy by Marlen

The need to provide accurate portion control of food products continues to grow each year, with this in mind, Marlen offers two distinct methods to make meat portioning easier, including volumetric or static portioning and dynamic or inline portioning. Dynamic Meat Portioning Dynamic portioning is achieved by accurately metering the product flow out of a Marlen vacuum stuffer and pumping system along with a Marlen cutoff device to portion the product at a fixed time interval. Marlen guarantees a portion accuracy of +/- 2% of... Read More →

Why Industrial Flame Grilling Helps Retail Sales

When it comes to ready-to-serve meals, deli products, frozen foods, and even fast-food items, consumers are looking for products that feature authentic color as well as appealing texture and delicious taste.  Now food processors can deliver those consumer preferences through modern surface treatment technologies designed for the best yields at a variety of quality standards. One of the principal methods for developing natural color is with flame.  With modern flame cooking and other surface treatment technologies, a whole range of authentic colors and surface effects... Read More →

Why Having the Best Industrial Food Processing Equipment is a Must for Your Business

There are several factors to consider when sourcing industrial food processing equipment to ensure maximum production efficiency and delivery of optimum food products which leads to increased profits. The following areas which focus on total cost of ownership should be well understood by you and your team prior to sourcing equipment from OEMs. Innovative Robust Food Processing Equipment is Not Always the Cheapest to Acquire But Often Performs Better in TCO When you’re producing a premium processed food product that must feature consistency and optimum... Read More →

What Does Marlen Mean When We Say High Performance Industrial Oven?

It’s important that thermal processing technology such as high performance industrial food processing ovens and smokehouses deliver uniformity and efficiency for quality, uniform product. Robust sanitary construction and an efficient mechanical design, including fans, ducts, air plenum and alternating dampers working together to enhance airflow are major factors in achieving consistent processing conditions for precise repeatable results, day after day. Reliable Industrial Ovens and Smokehouses with Uniform Processing Conditions Necessary for High Quality Cooked or Smoked Meats Permanent air balance of supply and return air... Read More →

Selecting the Right Meat Dicer for Your Needs

If you were the manager of 10 of the greatest engineers on the planet and you wanted to design the perfect meat dicer to meet a variety of application needs, how would you do it? We asked several of our customers this key question and here’s what they said. Solve workforce challenges with an icon-based HMI What’s going in today’s meat plants is a severe shortage of employees. As meat processors, we find that we’re training operators on Monday only to find them gone by... Read More →

Questions to Ask Your Food Processing Equipment Manufacturer

Does your company have the ability to design and engineer a food processing equipment solution around our application(s)? Food processors should look for an equipment manufacturer with decades of experience in the food processing industry who is committed to enabling customer success through trusted and robust solutions by offering application know-how, process expertise and engineering customization. Many food products are unique in nature and therefore processors need unique equipment solutions to deliver the products that consumers demand. It’s also important to find a partner who... Read More →

Key Factors for Food Dehydration

Utilization of Efficient Industrial Dehydrators for Optimal Food Product Uniformity The primary objectives during food dehydration are to achieve lethality requirements and desired finished product characteristics. Any inefficiency in dehydrator performance can have a negative impact on the quality, yield, and safety of ready-to-eat (RTE) processed meat and poultry products. All too often the dehydrator controls system is used as the sole source to determine performance metrics. However, it is equally important to periodically validate both the dehydrator and product performance to ensure that the... Read More →

Ask the Marlen experts: What makes the best industrial chillers?

History of Blast Chilling Cooked, partially cooked or “heat treated” meat and poultry products must be stabilized by cooling to prevent the growth of spore-forming bacteria. Best stabilization guidelines, FSIS Appendix B, require “that cooling be continuous through the given time/temperature control points”. But, how many or how few plant chilling devices can demonstrate control points being reached reliably so that random sampling of production lots can never challenge a plant’s validated processes? The Process of Chilling Meat Efficiently Requires More Than a Recipe The... Read More →

What Makes Marlen Vacuum Stuffers Unique?

Vacuum stuffing equipment plays a vital role in the finished product quality of meat and poultry products. It is important to understand the unique benefits of twin-piston vacuum stuffing and pumping systems and how they affect desired finished product characteristics. Below is a summary of the advantages of twin-piston technology for the pumping and stuffing of whole muscle, ground and comminuted products. Superior vacuum levels are achieved with Marlen’s twin-piston vacuum pumping design. This is mainly due to Marlen’s twin-piston and sleeve design. Through this... Read More →

COVID-19 in the Food Industry: What has changed?

Flexibility Is the New Normal in the Food Industry. The need for food manufacturers to serve the foodservice industry came to a complete halt during COVID-19 after restaurants and commissaries closed across the country and drove consumer demand from the foodservice channel to retail. Food producers immediately found themselves in a complex situation as many were focused on the specialization of prepared foods which was no longer needed, thus causing immediate supply chain disruptions. What we saw was a forced movement to flex in an... Read More →

Myths About Food Processing

There are a lot of myths that have surfaced over the years about food and meat processing. This causes an immense amount of confusion one has when they resolve to eat healthier. From connections with animal handling to food safety protocols, we’ve all seen a lot of misinformation circulating on traditional and social media channels. It is important to remember that there are risks and benefits to everything we eat and as consumers we must make logical and well-informed decisions by proactively seeking information from... Read More →

Best Sustainability Practices for the Food Supply Chain

Sustainability in the food industry is about reducing food waste and lowering the impact of food production on the natural environment as produce moves along the supply chain from field to processor to table. Sustainability does not just benefit the environment. By reducing food waste, limiting energy and water consumption, and creating more sustainable business models, food companies can increase profitability in the long run. Sustainability is vital along the entire food supply chain. Waste in one area can increase prices for all the companies... Read More →

What the Growing Demand for Vegan Options Means for the Food Industry

A vegetarian diet is one that excludes all animal meats, such as chicken or fish. A vegan diet excludes all animal meats and animal by-products, such as eggs or dairy. As of June 2017, about 6% of the U.S. population claimed to be vegan. Vegan and vegetarian diets are increasing in popularity, and consumers are demanding more plant-based food options when they grocery shop and go out to eat. The rising popularity of vegan and vegetarian food has caused a shift in the food industry.... Read More →

Reducing Operational Costs in Food Manufacturing

As a food processing or manufacturing industry professional, you’re probably well aware of the importance of your operational costs and how much they affect your bottom line. Saving energy, resources, labor, and time with efficient food processing equipment is the best way to ensure you’re keeping these costs as low as possible. As the global population continues to increase, the demand for food is also expected to increase by about 60% by 2050. According to the Office of Energy Consumption and Efficiency, the food industry... Read More →

What Are Processed Foods and Which Are Okay To Eat?

Processed food is any food that has been altered before you eat it. This may include deseeding, adding chemicals, cutting, or implementing any other type of process that changes the food before it is sold. With this loose and overarching definition, even carrot sticks could be considered processed foods since they were washed, sliced, and placed in a bag prior to consumption. Many assume the term “processed food” indicates a food has been altered in an unhealthy way before being placed on grocery store shelves.... Read More →

The Future of Global Food Systems

By 2030, the global population is expected to rise to 8.5 billion people. The global food system and the way food is grown, produced, distributed, and consumed is crucial when attempting to feed so many people. Efficiency, sustainability, and automation within the food industry are important components that must be addressed to ensure global food systems are productive enough to feed the rising population. As the population grows, the strategies and procedures used in global food production systems become even more crucial to the livelihood... Read More →

How to Restore Consumer Confidence After a Scandal

Scandals can happen in any industry and can be unexpected, making it hard to know how to take action and mitigate the situation quickly and effectively. As a food industry professional, you may never have to deal with a scandal in your business — but it’s important to understand how to recover effectively just in case you do face this type of situation. Fixing the issue that caused the scandal and rebuilding the consumer’s trust in your company are the two most important concerns to... Read More →

Supply Chain Management Trends in the Food Industry

In the food industry, the efficiency of the supply chain is vital to profitability and safety. When one link in the food supply chain, such as a farmer or packaging plant, isn’t operating at peak performance, every other link in the chain is negatively affected. Advanced technology in supply chain management has allowed food manufacturers that are willing to embrace new trends to explore more thoughtful and efficient processes. There are many opportunities within the food supply chain to increase efficiency, safety, and productivity. By... Read More →

How Automation Benefits the Food Industry

A business needs all of its components to operate together seamlessly because of stiff competition and tight margins in the food industry. You need skilled labor, the right types of equipment, strict quality control, an attractive brand, and effective management practices. You also need to abide by the many regulations and laws regarding safe production and food handling. The challenges associated with running a food business can grow if you achieve success. For example, demand can increase during specific seasons or because of particular events... Read More →

Sustainability in the Pet Food Industry

The idea of sustainability has become increasingly popular in the early 21st century. Not only are individuals looking for ways to apply eco-friendly practices and use sustainable products in their personal lives, but businesses and entire industries are finding ways to use sustainable practices in their operations. Some industries have embraced sustainability, while the idea still hasn’t caught on in other sectors. Pet food is one of the areas where eco-friendliness is not yet a common topic. Nonetheless, sustainability, environmental friendliness, and related topics are... Read More →

Reasons for Kitchen Equipment Failure

Professionals in the food industry rely on the functionality of their kitchen equipment to deliver consistent and safe products effectively to consumers. Kitchen equipment seldom lasts forever or performs perfectly at all times; under regular use without basic maintenance, you may even experience equipment failure. However, in most cases, this failure is preventable if you’re aware of the most common causes of breakdowns as well as how to avoid them. As a food industry professional, paying close attention to your kitchen equipment and ensuring you’re... Read More →