Bakel, Holland-headquartered GEA Food Solutions has won a gold medal in the International FoodTec Awards competition for innovation in industrial plant and process technology for its MultiDrum breading machine. It is among nine winners to receive the gold prize, which will be presented during the Anuga FoodTec in Cologne.
The GEA MultiDrum enables the efficient production of home-style products on an industrial scale.The GEA MultiDrum uses an innovative technique to separate a single stream of products into three streams to ensure even feeding into three parallel drums, which thus maximizes coating consistency. It is no longer necessary to use manual operators to do this.
The machine is very space efficient, requiring less room on the factory floor. To create a dust-free work environment and keep the system clean, the equipment can be completely closed with covers and used in combination with the patented GEA OptiAir system.
The MultiDrum is especially adept at producing home-style products, which are characterized by a coarse, crispy coating. Typical examples include natural boneless and bone-in poultry. For food processors to achieve the required look, bite and coverage required, pick-up of coarse flour may be up to 45%, which means that almost half of the end-product is coating. Flat-bed breaders struggle to achieve this level of coverage, while still maintaining the desired “coral reef” appearance.
Among other gold medal winners are Insort GmbH, for its Sherlock Food Analyzer, and VEMAG Maschinenbau GmbH, for its AML273 meatball loader. The International Food Tec Awards competition is organized by the Germany Agricultural Society (DLG), the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST) and a number of trade journal publishers.
Examples of the kinds of home-style products created with the help of the GEA MultiDrum breading system.
