“Successful processors of prepared foods have the ability to fully and efficiently cook a wide range of products,” explains Doug Kozenski, sales manager for prepared food processing systems at Heat and Control Inc. “The foodservice industry, for example, requires fully-cooked products for fast in-store or on-site preparation and to assure food safety. Processors seeking maximum flexibility require a line to include batter and breading capabilities, frying (both full and par-fry), oven cooking, flame searing and/or grill mark branding.”

Heat and Control supplies one of the widest range of coating applicators, cooking, conveying, inspection, and packaging equipment for prepared foods. “MasterTherm is one of our most versatile prepared foodsfryers, and uniformly fries batter, breaded, and uncoated poultry, meat, seafood, and vegetable products,” says Kozenski. “It can even be used to brown deli loaves, and models are available for snack foods.”

“MasterTherm’s proprietary thermal fluid heat exchanger uses series of longitudinal two-pass U-tubes to maintain temperature uniformity across the width and length of the fryer. Plus, the U-tube design simplifies cleaning and allows for independent expansion of the individual tubes, which greatly reduces thermal stresses and cracking.”

When assembling a line for versatility, Kozenski says the AirForce impingement oven offers almostlimitless choices for high-yield cooking, browning, and development of special surface finishes. “Uniform air flow and temperature across the width of the product conveyor, with velocities up to 9,000 FPM, provides fast, uniform cooking. This allows more product to be run through the oven, and more importantly, it means each product piece is evenly cooked to the same safe core temperature – which is critical to food safety and reduction of reject waste,” says Kozenski. “Each 22 foot long module of an AirForce oven can have two-zone cooking control which provides process control for a wide range of products. The oven’s recipe-based PLC control stores a large library of cooking recipes for fast changeovers and repeatable cooking,” he notes.

“Really, the best way to evaluate equipment is by using it,” says Kozenski. “We encourageprocessors to visit one of our technical centers where they can test their products on our fryers and ovens, and develop new processes without interrupting production schedules at their plant,”

For technical center appointments, please call 800 227 5980 or 510 259 0500, or email to info@heatandcontrol.com.