r easy-to-prepare, readily seasoned products is growing fast with value added products moving into the focus of retailers and consumers. Marinating is an effective way of increasing consumer appeal, product quality and ease of cooking, and a growth area more and more processors look to invest in.When Dutch food processor 2Sisters Storteboom, a division of UK based 2Sisters Food Group Ltd., decided to expand their activities in the fast growing retail market, they searched for a marinating system that could combine high capacity with excellent product quality while working efficiently inline. They found it all in Marel’s ValueDrum.
Marinating wasn’t new to 2Sisters Storteboom. They had already been producing ready-to-cook products on a small scale, using conventional tumblers. That worked, but they really wanted to be ready to step up in scale. Plant Manager Hans Van Norden explains, “Conventional tumblers create all kinds of logistic problems when dealing with large quantities because there’s a lot of handling and loading and they create buffers which seriously interrupt product flow. This also affects the visual and bacteriological quality of the products. 2Sisters needed very large tumblers, but products get crushed and damaged in them, badly affecting quality and appearance.”
ValueDrum
Marel’s longstanding and successful relationship with 2Sisters played a pivotal role in the acquisition of ValueDrum. “Marel came into view early. They have been one of our main suppliers for years and we have an excellent relationship. It only made sense to ask them for a solution,” Van Norden recalls.
Marel installed a trial version of the latest ValueDrum at the Zeewolde plant and after only three hours of vigorous testing an order was placed.
Advantages
ValueDrum has many advantages over traditional tumblers. Because products are constantly in motion, they cannot be crushed under their own weight. This also guarantees an even distribution of marinade and herbs on the products providing excellent appearance, quality and flavour.
ValueDrum is easy to load and the end products can be loaded and packed in retail trays straight from the machine’s conveyor. It’s also very easy to change recipes without the need for further weighing and measuring.
Skin coverage
Another important benefit, especially for poultry products, is ‘skin coverage’. For both look and flavour it is vital the chicken skin stays intact when processing legs, wings or whole birds. Van Norden says: “This is crucial for product quality. We used to do a lot of manual restyling to our products after marinating. - Very time-consuming and expensive, I can assure you. But with ValueDrum, skin coverage is very high, so restyling is hardly an issue anymore. This has already saved us a lot of time and money!”
Future plans
Van Norden concludes: “At the moment we’re not using the machine to its full potential, but it plays an essential role in expanding our product range. We are planning on doubling production in the very near future and we are already contemplating working in shifts. There’s a huge market there for us and the ValueDrum helps us to conquer it.”
