Tilberedt, an outdoor ready meal company, has been created by Michael Pedersen, a keen sailor and Danish chef with a great reputation in his country.
He offers a wide variety of preserves and prepared dishes. From stews and vegetarian dishes to sweet dishes and desserts. All of them based on three main pillars:
- The taste experience and the quality of its ingredients. His dishes are prepared in a homemade way looking for the maximum flavor.
- The possibility of taking food wherever you want and without the need for refrigeration. Both for long-distance boat trips and hiking trails, bearing in mind that the weight of your products is not a problem.
- The sustainability. The recipes are made in a way that there is minimal waste of raw materials, the dosage is prepared in sizes of one or two servings to avoid possible waste or excesses, and the containers are recyclable.
Tilberedt is currently working towards organic approval of its products by the Danish Food and Veterinary Administration, scheduled for spring 2022.
His elaborations can be obtained through his online store and he also organizes face-to-face deliveries sporadically. In addition to offering the option of taking a masterclass in which he himself teaches how to make preserves at home, Michael Pedersen has written a book with tips for making preserves and recipes.
Problem: how to keep for as long as possible his ready meals for his long boat trips
Michael Pedersen comes from a family of sailors and is aware of the concern of keeping fresh food in good condition for as long as possible.
That childhood concern combined with his passion for cooking led him, as a renowned chef, to want to find the best way to preserve food. He tried different techniques such as refrigeration, but finally he opted for sterilization because it was the one that best maintained the organoleptic characteristics of the different ingredients.
He started sterilizing at home with a pressure cooker and even wrote a book about it giving advice and recipes for canning. During the writing process, the first requests began to arrive, and one thing led to another, until now.
Challenge: prepare quality ready meals, with great flavor and total food safety
Michael Pedersen confesses that, when he began to prepare his preserved dishes at home, he ran into two great challenges:
- Fill the containers as much as possible without breaking them.
- Achieving the proper time in the pressure cooker for the product to be safe to eat.
Throughout the process, he ran into other obstacles. He discovered that there are some ingredients which it is better to do without because during the thermal process they lose their flavor and do not add anything to the dishes.
He also points out that there are some raw materials that change color, especially green ones. He was so passionate about this topic that he made a list of ingredients that work or not when it comes to sterilization.
On the other hand, the demand for its preserves and prepared dishes was increasing, which led it to abandon the pressure cooker and consolidate this initiative as a business and a brand: Tilberedt. Formalizing his business meant a professionalization that, despite being used to it as a professional chef, involved a series of changes unknown to him, especially in the health and legal fields.
Solution: professional autoclave sterilization
He found the solution to his problems by replacing the pressure cooker with an advanced autoclave, which allows him to monitor and record the entire sterilization process. Specifically, with a TERRA Food-Tech® autoclave, with which he was able to solve both the problems of changes in the appearance and flavor of the food as well as the sanitary ones to be able to market his preserves and prepared dishes.
“Without the TERRA Food-Tech® autoclave I would not have been allowed to sell canned food.”
Michael Pedersen, chef and owner of Tilberedt
Michael Pedersen emphasizes the support offered by TERRA Food-Tech® by advising and responding to both technical questions related to your autoclave and those related to the preparation of certain foods.
“The TERRA Food-Tech® autoclave offers many settings that can help lower the cooking temperature, while at the same time giving you the assurance that your food is top-notch.”
Michael Pedersen, chef and owner of Tilberedt
Also, this Danish chef with years of experience behind the stove, is still surprised now by the great benefits of sterilization. As indicated, the production of preserves in glass is sustainable, and more so if it is done with an autoclave, since cooking is done much faster. In addition, no refrigerator or freezer is required for their maintenance and distribution, they can be given a longer shelf life and food waste is minimal.
“I strongly believe that TERRA Food-Tech® autoclaves are synonymous with quality.”
Michael Pedersen, chef and owner of Tilberedt