Cooking and smoking is a central feature of Tulip UK, with its 23 factories, 7,000 employees and £1bn turnover representing the interests of the Danish Crown Group in the UK.
Tulip has selected the Maurer range of cookers and smokers from Interfood Technology for its most recent applications. Some 13 Maurer Atmos cooking and smoking units have been installed in three plants owned by the group. The most recent installation was at the Roach Foods pre-packed bacon and cooked meats plant in Bugle, Cornwall, now part of Tulip UK, where three new Maurer units have been installed.
The approach taken at Bugle has been adopted as best practice across the group, with the smokers' friction smoke generators housed at the back of the units and segregated from the high-risk food production area.
As factory manager Darren Andrew says: "By encasing the friction wheel which generates the smoke, we take it outside of the food production area and thereby manage risk which has benefits in terms of our insurance."
The smoker doors are located within the food production area so that the trolleys containing backs, bellies and gammon bacon joints produced by the plant can simply be rolled in and out, with bumper bars protecting the interior and exterior of the ovens from potential damage.
The latest units comprise five trolleys and are in operation 20 hours a day, seven days a week. "Consistency of smoke and consistency of cook is vital," says Andrew. "It is no good fully loading the units if the smoke is not distributed evenly and a colour differentiation results. The even distribution of the smoke throughout the chamber means there is very little difference between those joints at the top, in the middle and those at the bottom of the smoker."
At the Bugle plant, the units are used for both cooking and smoking. However, at sister plant Dalehead Foods in Bury St Edmunds, which became part of the Tulip Group in January 2005, units are used for smoking only. The Bury plant operates two Maurers, each with a three trolley capacity and, like Bugle, houses the smoke generating friction wheel outside of the main food production area.
''Contact: Interfood Technology,Tel: 01844 217676''