Gently does it

Gentle Motion reciprocating retorts have been installed in a European food plant for the first time and are being used on shelf-stable soup products packed in flexible containers.

Gentle Motion agitation is a high-capacity retort process designed for pouches and bowls that are oriented horizontally in a retort, rather than vertically, like cans, bottles and jars. The back-and-forth reciprocating motion of the retort baskets in a Gentle Motion retort produces waves of heat that flow longitudinally through the package.

For soups and sauces that have low-to-moderate viscosity and moderate-to-high liquid and particulate content, this process is ideal. Each Gentle Motion retort can have up to six full-sized baskets and can be loaded and unloaded via an automated system.

Gentle Motion reciprocating retorts in action.

In the European food plants, the reciprocating agitation process has reduced processing time on average from 5 to 40%. Besides increasing plant capacity, the reduced cooking time also improves a shelf-stable product’s taste, texture and appearance.

“Flexible packaging is steadily growing in Western and Eastern Europe and Russia,” said Greg Jacob, vice president and general manager, Allpax.

“We believe that this new Gentle Motion line will be an important demonstration for the European food industry of how flexible packaging combined with horizontal agitation sterilisation can produce significant quality and capacity improvements.”

Allpax recently conducted research into the impact of Gentle Motion agitation on 15 foods packaged in various microwaveable pouches and bowls. The research showed reduced processing time, increased capacity compared to static retort processing and subjective improvements in quality, including taste, texture and appearance.

In these tests, sterilisation time reduced from 14 to 59% over static retorts. In addition, food quality improved across the board