Retort technology improves the taste of food packaged in microwaveable containers.

In a seven minute audio interview, Greg Jacob, vice president and general manager ofAllpax(www.Allpax.com), powered byPro Mach(www.ProMachInc.com), describes how microwaveable bowls and pouches lend themselves to faster and more even heat transfer when agitated in a retort with a gentle horizontal reciprocating motion.

“This new gentle motion technology for microwaveable food containers is a revolution for consumers, brand owners, and contract packagers,” says Jacob. “Motion can be added to existing static retorts without a penalty in batch capacity.”

Jacob says that not only does cycle time decrease by 30 to 50% for each retort batch, depending on product and speed of agitation, but also the taste of the food improves. For example, burn on or scorching of dairy products is eliminated and hydration of high starch foods such as beans is accelerated uniformly.

In the gentle motion process, every horizontally oriented container experiences the same agitation profile. This produces greater uniformity in heat transfer within the package and therefore greater consistency in taste among packages. Jacob explains how static retorts can be retrofitted for reciprocating motion without any loss of batch capacity and with the same operator interface and workflow.