The Customer
Full Green’s London-based husband and wife team prepared their own vegetable rice at home in a food blender. They subsequently turned this into a shelf-stable product range known as “Riced”, “Riced Ideas” and “Best Morning Ever” that are known for being non-GMO, vegan friendly and promote a lower calorie, healthier lifestyle. Using the vegetable stems resulted in a firmer, better quality and more sustainable product that maintains taste and quality for 12 months.
Full Green secured shelf space with a leading UK retailer before taking the brand international to the USA in 2017, where it was in produced in the state of Indiana. As of 2020, Full Green products sell across 7,000 US retailers.
The Challenge
The vegetable rice is sealed in its packet and cooked at a high temperature for a short amount of time to sterilise the product, using hot water/steam before being covered in cold water to cool the pouch.
During this cooling pre-packaging phase, Full Green’s insufficient drying delayed packing and left unsightly water marks on their pouches, which stained and ruined the aesthetics. Looking good along with tasting good are key requirements that reflect the quality of the overall product. Residual water had to be removed quickly and completely from the DOY pack including the gusset, to speed up production and ensure their premium range of products looked their best.
Full Green were also mindful that as a fast-growing company, they needed their production line to grow with them. They needed increased capacity and capability as production ramped up.
The Solution
The Pouch Dryer removes moisture from the entire surface of food pouches and ready meal trays at up to 7,500 packs p/hour, including the gusset of DOY packs where water can get trapped. For maximum exposure to the drying fixtures, the Pouch Dryer uses a stainless-steel mesh conveyor with a significant open area, allowing air to pass through.
Full Green needed dry packaging to avoid water marks and increase packing speed. An additional (optional) hold-down conveyor was selected to ensure the pouches remained securely in place. This conveyor applies light pressure to the packs to open up the gusset of the doy pack, where a drying fixture is specifically aimed. Additional drying fixtures combined with Secomak’s efficient and reliable centrifugal blower technology ensures the entire Food Pouch is dried.
Supplying multinational organisations around the world, Secomak has equipped brands such as Birds Eye, Premier Foods, Craft Foods (Heinz), Jordans and Pinguin with drying solutions for over 40 years. This expertise has driven development of our Drying Machines, including the Secomak Pouch Dryer.
The Benefits
The Pouch Dryer’s impact was immediate, with each pouch leaving the production line dry, including inside the gusset. This resulted in a product that looked premium in both design and finish, improving the brand value of Full Green’s product ranges.
The initial requirement was to dry DOY packs at 1,050 packs p/hour, but as Full Green increased production in the UK, the Pouch Dryer grew with them. As capacity expanded by over 40% to 1,500 packs p/hour, the Pouch Dryer maintained peak performance without requiring Full Green to change or upgrade the machine.
Powerful yet compact, Secomak’s high speed direct drive fan technology helped sustain this growth whilst being dependable and virtually maintenance free. Full Green’s on-site team have tended to the machine when necessary, such as cleaning and rinsing made easy due to its food safe, stainless steel design.
Ask us how Secomak Pouch Dryer can benefit your FoodBev production line.
Technical Specification
