published on 11/08/10
Summer 2011 will see the first commercial installation of an IFT recognised and FDA approved technology which is claimed to improve flavour, nutrient retention and texture of foods as well as significantly reducing process times over conventional systems.
Glenn Emory, vice president of strategy and development at Food Chain Safety (FCS), the firm behind the commercialisation of the technology, Microwave Assisted Thermal Sterilization (MATS), said that US military food supplier AmeriQual Foods will incorporate a MATS Series 150 unit into its production line mid way through next year.
The technology has been developed over a ten year period through a collaborative effort between academia, food industry partners and the US army and is targeted at pre-packaged, low-acid foods.
MATS is said to deliver higher nutrient retention values and allows for the drastic reduction of artificial ingredients or heavy loadings of extenders required to carry traditional products through conventional sterilization systems.
The IFT jury praised the fact that: “through the development of a semi-continuous, single-mode, 915 MHz microwave system, the sterilization process was dramatically shortened thereby providing significant improvements to food quality.”
Emory explained that US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2009 was secured through the efforts of the academia/industry/government consortium overcoming US regulatory hurdles. Emory said that FCS presented an update on the microwave technology at the Total Processing and Packaging trade event in the UK in May and as a result plans are now underway to establish a similar approach to the US consortium development strategy in Europe in order to accelerate the take up of MATS there.
According to Emory, MATS eliminates the need for any cold chain logistics support, uses the highest product to package weight ratio and has been designed for ease of operation, and thus he claims it is ideal processing technology for emerging markets.
Emory said that FCS is bringing MATS to market in both a full commercial output rating for full scale production (rating up to 150 ppm) and a lower capacity unit (up to 10 ppm) that he said is applicable to smaller operations or as a testing-to-scale-up R&D unit.
“To insure ease of adoption and to maximize the processing safety of the equipment and packaging materials”

Read the full article at FoodProductionDaily.com