Unitherm reveals planned EU acquisitions for growth

The manufacturer of thermal food processing equipment said it hoped to make announcements soon when deals are completed.

It said the EU sector is dominated by JBT FoodTech and GEA but it works with smaller enterprises who don’t have the means to go beyond a smaller audience to give them the opportunity to bring products to a wider market.

David Howard, Unitherm’s founder and owner, told us that customers in the EU are often producing different products on the same processing line.

“They want to be able to switch on the fly, meat or vegetables, so two hours cooking chicken and now roast peppers and have no drop in quality,” ​he said.  ​

“More vegetables are being processed, roast pumpkin for example and 9,000 pounds per hour of roasted peppers are being done and roasted garlic.​

“In the potato area, sweet potatoes are being cut into fries which are oven roasted. There is a variety in products that are being commercialized.”​

Cooking and freezing tech​

Sous vide cooking is a constant for the firm, said Howard, but he added it was not well understood.

“We have seven clients in the US and every customer doing sous vide has doubled or trebled in the last few years.​

“There is a poor understanding of what is meant by sous vide because of the temperature and the time.”  ​

The firm has also looked at freezing technology and how things were being built with food safety in mind.

“Utilising coil made out of copper nickel was one thing we found as there was research in Sweden that showed pathogens could not grow on the coil.​

“With a copper nickel coil, pathogens will not grow on the alloy so after a clean in place system, steam in box 80 degrees Celsius, it guarantees food to be pathogen free.”​

Howard said there is a big push on techniques for cooking sliced bacon.

“In the US market 95% cook sliced bacon from the microwave and in the UK it is about 75%. Microwaves change the texture of the product so we looked at that and cooking it in a spiral oven, fat rendering layer to layer and cook in own juices not unlike what happens in a frying pan.”​

Unitherm has a joint development with Grote, which works in the slicer/applicator equipment area, to handle applications such as bulk slicing and portion control.

The partnership is around reducing critical exposure time so the product doesn’t get cross contaminated as blades are kept hot and it is never exposed to potential pathogens.

In-line weighing and packaging to go with the work is the next step.

CEO named​

Unitherm told us it developed a healthier, faster and more sustainable process​ for industrial food smoking applications using infra-red cooking in 2012.

The system is able to run at temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius with traditional smoking taking a long time because of the relatively low temperatures of 90 degrees Celsius.

Unitherm also named Mark Smith as its CEO late last year. Smith has spent nine years in commercial banking and private equity and 16 years in leadership roles with Daydots and Ecolab.

He guided Daydots through its early stages of development, growth and its sale to Ecolab, where he worked for five years to lead the business in continued growth and integration with its parent company.

Smith will oversee aspects of daily operations and strategic planning for Unitherm. 

Howard will continue his active involvement, serving as its chairman, with a focus on product and business development.