Chairman’s Foods, Nashville, Tenn., is a custom food processor and packager that develops and executes private label or store brand products for a wide variety of in-store retail and foodservice operations. The core product line includes soups, wet prepared salads, sous vide cooked proteins, gravies, dips and fillings, and side dishes you might find, either on their own or constructed in-store, in fresh foods around the periphery of a supermarket, or in a grab-and-go retail setting.
In producing fresh food for the in-store retail channel, particularly for national chains, the company had always walked the tightrope of maintaining freshness in an environment that can greatly benefit from extended shelf-life. The answer had always been frozen food.
“我们一直在进行50年代，我们为大多数年来的主要业务是一家烹饪机构，”董事长食品首席执行官Chris Staudt说。“Our central and most primary way of addressing food safety, as well as shelf-life, was through cook-chill methods, as a kettle-cook, chill, and freeze operation, and that’s where we were really well-versed in multiple different types of food products.”
另一条路线,更耐储存甲型肝炎e been the addition of chemical preservatives, but Chairman’s opted against the practice in favor of clean labels, another emerging trend. Then, back in 2011, a project came along from one of its biggest supermarket chains. This chicken casserole-style dish pitted an unstoppable force against an immovable object. The customer asked for weekly delivery nationwide, but each delivered unit required 30 days of shelf stability upon receipt. This seemed impossible with unpasteurized fresh product without preservatives, and the customer wouldn’t accept frozen as an alternative. In fact, more and more of Chairman’s customers were asking for the best of both worlds with never-frozen meals that could last on the shelf. Something had to give, and that’s what led Staudt to high pressure processing (HPP) and普遍纯粹, the largest provider of HPP in North America.
在HPP的早期，价格标签的极大昂贵的HPP机器，为所有具有最深的口袋（以及最广泛的生产脚印）的食品生产商而言，这项技术脱离了遥不可及的技术。但这为普遍纯粹为第三方HPP服务提供商开辟了大道，以在这种机器上收缩能力，并作为这项业务的价值增加，提供各种各样的辅助包装和线尾包装服务包装类型，形状和尺寸，从瓶子到容器到袋子。尽管如此，HPP是一个昂贵的过程仍然存在感知。但现在，用技术剪下牙齿后，近十年来，卓绘报告称，通过全面地看价格标签并考虑所有所涉及的物流，越来越多地致力于惠普的青睐。
第一个测试案例和提示点
A test run on that otherwise impossible chicken casserole bridged the gap between fresh and shelf stability in that it increased shelf-life from 21 days after date of manufacture to 60 days. Food integrity was maintained without spoilage with no need to freeze or add any chemical preservatives that would lengthen food ingredient lists.
That success so impressed Staudt and Chariman’s Foods that by 2017, 60% of products sold were fresh/refrigerated via HPP processing, compared to 100% frozen only a decade ago. And more recently, the company has vastly expanded its offering, mixing and matching products that may not even require any thermal treatment (cooking) at all.
“Cooking a product is intended to change the product’s structure,” Staudt says. “HPP doesn’t change the structure or integrity at all, so we can combine cooked with fresh product in-pack. It simply inactivates the food-borne pathogens and spoilage organisms for longer freshness.”
一些产品可能是带烘烤的风格，有些可能需要店内或食品服务准备，其他人仍被设计用于套餐，通常来自店内熟食店的蛤壳或商店周边地点。
“We use the HPP process to have that pathogen lethality step. We’re delivering it in a foodservice vacuum packed pouch—it’s not a flashy package,” Staudt says. “But what it is offering our customers, the retailers, is the ability to use it fresh and then put it into components that are sold at retail levels. All of the projects we work on are customer-driven and customer-specific. A lot of it is driven by the logistics, by the supply chain needs and timing needs to get the product to the shelf, to the consumer, while it’s still fresh and safe to eat.”
Today’s HPP process and logistics
Today, Chairman’s Foods uses two different Universal Pure locations, one outside of Dallas, the other outside of Atlanta, and on occasion a third Lincoln, NE, facility. Staudt says that the nationwide scale is helpful for national retail and foodservice customers, but given proximity to Nashville, the Atlanta-area location tends to be the destination for most product. There, Universal Pure operates three 350LJBT AvureHPP machines.
“这一过程今天的过程方式，每周一次，我们服用鸡肉沙拉[或其他类似产品]，我们将其与所有新鲜成分混合在纳什维尔。We then fill it in a foodservice pouch—an industrial-sized pouch of a little over four pounds filled—and then we’ll take that four pound pouch and we pack it, we load it up on a refrigerated truck, and send it to one of the Universal Pure locations,” Staudt says.
Mark Fleck, Universal Pure’s HPP consultant, says, “From Universal Pure’s perspective, working with Chris and his team at Chairman’s, was a win-win as we put our heads together to unlock the value of HPP to deliver the highest quality, clean label products for their customers.”
这些袋子由一个共同的5-mil Rollstock HPP-Cauge组成Cryovac.薄膜，并填充并密封在单个Cryovac VF / F / S或几个中vemag.filler-fedMultivac水平的热成型。鸡肉沙拉以及大多数汤，沙拉和调味汁的粘度意味着它是体积缩放的，并且不需要露天缩放，而是针对离散产品的组合规模。每个袋子施加一个5杆密封，以承受87,000磅的HPP压力。
Other applications destined for HPP include polypropylene tubs with clear lid film for ready-to-eat salads and dips. At many in-store delis, the 16-oz. PP tub with film barrier and lid is ubiquitous in carrying these types of products.
Filled pouches undergo metal detection before being case-packed into corrugated shippers that aren’t taped on top before being loaded into the refrigerated trucks. After the pouches go through the HPP process, they get a quick blow dry and date coding, they are hand packed into the original corrugated shippers. Only then are they sealed. Universal Pure can handle logistics in several ways, but in this case, Chairman’s Foods then begins freight management via a local 3PL out of the Universal Pure location.
“We manage the freight, but we have a good relationship with the Universal team,” Staudt says. “My logistics team and their logistics team work hand-in-hand to schedule inbounds, production of the HPP, and then the outbound as well. When we’re sending product in, every ounce is dedicated specifically to a unique location. They keep all that intact for us, and then help us to divvy it up in delivery as we direct them to.”
由于它构建了组合卡车，因此，3PL不使用传统的少于卡车装载（LTL）递送，因此在奇异卡车上安装了多个载荷，可以在奇异卡车上安装多个载荷。它与LTL类似，但代替装运小LTL货物，主席正在致力于拥有多个路线停止的全卡车。
最后一英里
Upon delivery to a retail or in-store retail or foodservice location, the HPP process effectively delays spoilage of the product in an unopened, refrigerated bag within whatever the pre-determined timeline dictates.
“We are always striving to deliver the freshest products to our customers with optimal shelf life when delivered to their door. Most of our customers need a minimum of 21 days of shelf life when the product is delivered to the distribution center, which allows them to get the product through the supply chain and to store shelves with maximum shelf life remaining. The value of HPP is to extend the shelf life of the primary components. But once the product is opened, the clock starts over, and at that point, the typical spoilage pattern starts to take over. Most products in the fresh perimeter are probably being sold within one to two days of being placed on the shelf.”
The underlying value proposition of HPP
The value of HPP for Staudt really becomes as much logistical as anything else. For a custom processer like Chariman’s Foods, the name of the game is extending shelf-life. As they produce, pack, and channel these products through HPP each week, everything is about timing, streamlining, and efficiency.
“积极影响物流的最佳方法之一是简化包装，”罗伯特补充道。“如果您可以在您的包装中获得更多产品，您可以使用较少的死区运送。当添加这些因素时，您开始真正影响整体成本并实现HPP为表格带来了什么。对我来说，惠普的价格因物流和额外的保质期而脱离。“
As previously mentioned, many companies list the cost of HPP as a barrier to entry. But the cost of HPP is mitigated by not having to use certain other ingredients and materials, many of which may act as end customer deterrents on an ingredient list, in a formula to extend shelf life or preserve a product. Also consider spoilage cost reduction—without any CO2 flush or vacuum seal on the pouches, Staudt says he’s still running it at a 99.5% yield.
“我对同龄人和竞争对手谈了很多，因为我们经常互相谈论商店。我告诉他们HPP比你想象的更具实惠，但你必须要做数学来看看所有不同的部件和碎片，“Staudt说。“货运和腐败和保质期和销售 - 所有这些事情都集中在一起。当你要考虑一切时，数学就解决了。很多比预期好多了很多。“-PW.
