The cooking and eating habits have been changing over the past years. Healthy nutrition has come to the fore more and more. This includes the consumption of fruit and vegetables.
Furthermore the convenience sector is gaining importance. One new trend, which came to the centre of attention at the PMA Fresh Summit in New Orleans, USA, from October 20-21, is the so-called vegetable rice, namely broccoli and cauliflower stems or also carrots cut in smallest pieces and resembling rice.
The product targets to those consumer groups preferring food which is healthy and rich of vegetables or having decided to live and eat even fully vegetarian. On the one side it can be seen as a substitution for regular rice and as such it is a completely new food option, which can be used as a main dish component (e.g. for risotto) but as a side dish as well.
On the other side, the vegetable rice fulfils the demand of many consumers who value nutritious food and appreciate convenient and quick preparation at the same time.
The KRONEN cube strip and slice cutting machine KUJ V looks to help with this growing demand, and allows processors to cut small, oblong vegetable strips from different sorts of vegetables using various alignments such as a format of 3 x 3 x 5 mm.
“It is our continuous endeavour to listen to the industry, perceive market trends and offer suitable technology solutions for our customers, which allow them to successfully expand their business. By offering KUJ V’s vegetable rice processing, we make the optimum production of another promising fresh vegetable product possible.” explains Stephan Zillgith, Managing Director of KRONEN.
Performance of the cube, strip and slice cutting machine KUJ V
The KRONEN KUJ V cuts vegetables, fruit or fish slices from 2 to 12 mm, strips from 2 to 20 mm and cubes of 3 mm up to 20 mm:
Depending on the product and cutting thickness, the capacity is between 300 to 3000 kg per hour.
High quality accessories enable neat slicing, improving the shelf life of the products.
Even delicate products (such as onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, courgettes or slightly frozen products) can be processed.
The standard built-in frequency converter with 7 adjustable speeds ensures a gentle cut of sensitive products such as strawberries or beetroot, etc.
In addition to larger dices of apples, melons, ham, cooked or chilled meat and a variety of vegetables, tiny cubes as small as 3 x 3 mm (Brunoise) can be cut and also thin, oblong strips e.g. in 3 x 3 x 5 mm format (vegetable rice)
For dips, soups, sauces, salads and much more, the KUJ V can produce fine strips in 2 x 2 mm thickness.
