We tell you why our food autoclave is perfect for processing preserves and ready meals.
TERRA Food-Tech® designs and manufactures food autoclaves for pasteurization and sterilization of gourmet preserves and prepared meals. And we do it because we like it and we are very good at it.
The fact is that, in the world of sterilization and autoclaves, we have extensive experience. Bear in mind that TERRA Food-Tech® was born within RAYPA, a company founded in 1970 and dedicated, since its beginnings, to the manufacture of autoclaves and food analyzers.
Therefore, we know that purchasing a food autoclave can be a significant investment for you or your company, but we can also guarantee that it is a totally profitable investment, both in the medium and long term. Especially if you decide to purchase a TERRA Food-Tech® autoclave. In this article, we explain all the reasons to get one of our autoclaves. Let’s get started! Would you like to join us?
Why should you purchase a TERRA Food-Tech® food autoclave?
1. We have more than 50 years of experience
TERRA Food-Tech® is a brand created in 2017 within RAYPA, a second-generation family-owned company, which has its origins in a line of RAYPA’s R&D autoclaves targeted for the food industry. The decision to create this new brand was taken after detecting that small producers, farmers, cooks and chefs demanded the existence of a compact food autoclave in order to be able to dedicate themselves, in a professional way, to the elaboration of gourmet preserves and ready meals. And they needed not only an autoclave, but also professional support and food consultancy services. In order to achieve this, we have incorporated in our team a laboratory manager specialized in food sterilization who gives technical support to all our customers, advising them on all those food technical issues that our customers need to know.
Our background comes from our past, since RAYPA has been designing and manufacturing laboratory autoclaves for more than half a century. We have been working in the world of sterilization and autoclaves for a long time. With TERRA Food-Tech® we continue to do so, but now our focus is on chefs and small packaged food producers and researchers in the food and packaging industries.
2. Specialized technical service from the very first moment
The aforementioned experience has taught us how important it is to accompany our customer, both in the installation and during the use of the autoclave. For this reason, TERRA Food-Tech® offers, from the very beginning, technical support and food consultancy services.
We don’t just sell the equipment, we offer an integral service. We carry out productivity studies before each purchase and our lab manager, who is dedicated exclusively to applications with this type of autoclaves, conducts product feasibility studies. And, of course, we offer practical and technical training on the day of commissioning and technical support after completing the installation of the autoclave. We help you to program your recipes and choose the best parameters for your product.
In addition, we are highly aware about the importance of our equipment for our customers. For this reason, we always provide urgent technical assistance in case of any failure and we have a warehouse with a stock of all spare parts and components in order to be able to ship to any region of the world.
3. Full compliance regarding food safety and hygiene regulations.
When it comes to marketing your gourmet preserves or prepared meals, it is mandatory to have a professional sterilizer, such as our autoclave, in order to carry out the heat treatment of your product properly and in accordance with the applicable legislation related to the safety and hygiene of preserves.
You must be able to record in individual batches each one of the heat treatments you perform with the equipment, and you can easily achieve this task thanks to our software that exports reports of each cycle and batch. In this way, you will have access to the registry of evidence of what you are working on, with the security and quality required by authorities. In addition, this software allows to generate and consult each thermal process in detail.
4. Excellent security and traceability measures
Food safety and hygiene regulations for any professional equipment, such as our autoclave, require certain safety measures and also systems that allow recording the entire temperature evolution of the product in each one of its stages.
We are aware of the different problems that may arise when handling a professional sterilizer. Thanks to our experience, at RAYPA we have incorporated extra safety features, such as:
- Positive pressure detection and protection against overpressure.
- Door with opening sensor and thermally insulated cover.
- Safety valve and safety thermostat.
- Alarms, error messages and screen-based user control.
Also, our food autoclaves are equipped with an accurate automated system that controls traceability and recording. As a result, all parameters are continuously monitored and recorded to ensure the correct operation of the unit. If the expected parameters are not achieved, the program is interrupted and a warning message is generated.
5. A 3 in 1 device
The TERRA Food-Tech® food autoclave cooks, pasteurizes and sterilizes. Three important functions in a single unit. Each recipe can be prepared according to your shelf goals. Not all sterilizers consider the possibility of cooking before applying the heat treatment, which is a very advantageous option, more than you might think at first, because it implies:
- Significant time and energy savings. You will be able to spend less time preparing your products and let them be finished using the autoclave. Or, due to the type of foods you prepare, you should not stew them and they can be cooked directly in the autoclave. In this way, you can take advantage of the heat generated during sterilization to cook your product.
- A perfect finish for your preserves or ready meals. The fact that your gourmet preserves or ready meals can finish their cooking process in an autoclave allows you to give the exact cooking point to your products without overcooking them and maintaining their nutritional and organoleptic properties.
6. Fast cooling system
Fast cooling is another feature included in our autoclaves so that your food is not overcooked and also your containers do not break or become deformed. Thanks to this system, unnecessary exposure to heat is avoided by quickly lowering the temperature by means of a shower system and immersion in cold water once the sterilization or pasteurization cycle has been completed.
In addition, TERRA Food-Tech® autoclaves allow the user to choose the number of chamber fillings and their duration, as well as the temperature at which the cycle ends, so that each product can be cooled as quickly as the user prefers or the product requires.
7. Adjustable pressure support
Another remarkable key feature of professional food autoclaves, which our autoclaves includes as a standard feature, is programmable pressure support system according to the type of container.
During the fast cooling phase, an air compressor integrated in the equipment injects additional pressure in a intelligent way, which minimizes the pressure differences between the chamber and the interior of containers, thus avoiding deformation, breakage or spillage of such containers during the sterilization phase or during the thermal shock that occurs in the cooling phase once cold water is in contact with the preserves at sterilization temperature.
Also, if you process glass jars, the pressure support will allow you to regulate the vacuum of those preserves, i.e. the force required to open the container.
8. Fully compatible with all types of foods and containers.
Thanks to its fast cooling and pressure support system and our wide range of accessories, our autoclaves are capable of pasteurizing or sterilizing any type of packaged food: fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, soups, creams, purees, juices, jams, sauces, sautés, patés, prepared meals… and in any type of packaging: cans, glass jars, semi-rigid trays, bags or pouches.
Being able to prevent your containers from breaking or deforming makes your job easier, since any breakage or alteration can mean unnecessary time spent on cleaning.
Keep in mind that if a glass jar, can or pouch of your preserves shatters, the liquid inside can ooze out of the hole, large or small, and end up fouling both the water and the remaining products. Likewise, if your containers become deformed, you will have no choice but to discard them. And, in the end, in both cases, the only one who would end up losing would be you, since you would be wasting time and money unnecessarily. These problems disappear when using our autoclaves.
9. It maintains the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of products.
A preserve or prepared meal is pasteurized or sterilized in order to eliminate part or all of the microorganisms and spores. In this way, you can make your product 100% safe for consumption and increase its shelf life, either by keeping it refrigerated if your product is pasteurized, or at room temperature if you have sterilized it.
These heat treatments usually alter food in some way, since we are applying high temperatures for a certain period of time. It is true that pasteurization is less invasive than sterilization because its objective is not to eliminate all microorganisms, but only a part of them.
In order to ensure that both heat treatments do not modify your gourmet preserves or prepared meals, our autoclaves guarantee the correct pasteurization or sterilization thanks to the regulation of that process through the direct control of the F0 & P0-values, whose exact formula ensures that your product maintains most of its nutrients and organoleptic characteristics by minimizing unnecessary heat exposure.
10. It includes a flexible probe and a drilling kit.
In general, professional sterilizers for preserves incorporate a chamber probe, which lets the machine know the temperature of the sterilization chamber. But some of these machines do not have a flexible probe, or core probe, which can be inserted inside a sample. And, in this way, the probe takes the internal temperature of a preserve and ensures that the product is processed at the necessary Celsius degrees at each one of the set times, thus reaching the target F0-value. With this extra control it is possible to maintain the organoleptic properties and nutritional characteristics of your preserves to the maximum.
In order to use this core probe, TERRA Food-Tech® includes, with the purchase of one of its autoclaves, a drilling kit for metal lids, although an optional kit for semi-rigid containers is also available. Likewise, a datalogger disk can be used when working with pouches or bags.
11. Storage of up to 50 programs
TERRA Food-Tech® autoclaves allow you to program and save pasteurization and sterilization cycles for up to 50 different products in a very simple way, with customized names and through a 5″ color touch screen.
This useful tool will help you automate the preparation of your preserves and/or ready meals, so that once you have determined the main parameters of a recipe, you can even delegate the execution of each process to other users. And thus save time, money and avoid any inconvenience.
12. Easy installation and intuitive operation
When installing our autoclave you will only need the same requirements as with a washing machine or a dishwasher, that is to say:
1 water inlet
1 drain outlet
1 electric connection
Likewise, as we have already mentioned before, if you purchase a TERRA Food-Tech® autoclave, our technical service is at your disposal to help you, both during installation and in case you have any questions afterwards. And you can also visit our YouTube channel where we are posting promotional and informative videos.
13. Up to 8 different autoclave models
TERRA Food-Tech® gives you the choice between different food autoclave models, with capacities from 19 to 175 liters: the vertical top-loading model, which is the most common format for gourmet preserves and prepared meals; or the horizontal or table-top model, particularly suitable for the R&D sector in food or packaging industries.
If you want to know which model best suits your needs, you must first know the number of containers you can sterilize per cycle with our autoclaves. In order to calculate it by yourself, we offer you the possibility to access, absolutely free of charge, to our online calculator. To do this, we only need to know the diameter and height of the containers used for your preserves. Everything made simple and fast!
14. Spare parts in stock and multiple accessories.
At TERRA Food-Tech® we manufacture our autoclaves with extreme care and with the purpose of making them last for many years. However, as with any machine, breakdowns can occur over the years.
For this reason, we immediately activate our after-sales service and put at your disposal our stock of components and spare parts. Our aim is to ensure that you are not forced to stop your production.
On the other hand, we know that small producers are unique and their needs are very different and may change. Therefore, our autoclaves can be fully adapted to their different needs thanks to the wide range of accessories we offer. Our products range from fixed or mobile cranes for safe and easy placement of heavy loads, to custom-made baskets and racks or stainless steel supports for placing flexible containers (such as pouches). And also professional software or drilling kits.
15. Our customers endorse us
Our customers are the right people to tell you about our food autoclaves, those who every day pasteurize or sterilize their gourmet preserves and/or prepared meals in them. Therefore, we invite you to visit our success stories section where they explain us, in first person, why they decided to start their business, how they got to know our autoclave and how they are doing.