|
Hussmann & Hahn: Prepared Foods, Germany
Hussman & Hahn – The Fish Company
Today's consumer is no longer satisfied with fish fingers alone. Someone buying fish deep-frozen which only has to be heated before being eaten generally expects a tasty meal, complete with side-dish and sauce. Hussmann & Hahn, a traditional fish-processing company from Cuxhaven, has taken up this challenge. To guarantee the highest possible quality even in complex, deep-frozen meals, the company uses not only nitrogen tunnel freezers and freezers operated by conventional refrigeration technology, but also a plate freezer. This is operated by ammonia cooled with liquid nitrogen at minus 196°C. The result: higher throughput and higher product quality. |
|
The Cuxhaven ocean fish market and the company Hussmann & Hahn were both founded in 1908. What began as a small enterprise processing and dealing in wet fish is now a company of around 600 employees, with production facilities in Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven and an annual turnover of just under 200 Million Marks. What is more, this fish specialist is the only supplier of the full range of fish products in this sector in Germany. That is to say, it is the only company to supply wet fish, smoked fish, frozen fish and fish delicacies, whereas the competition has generally specialised in only one of these four areas of business. At its two production sites, approximately 35,000 tonnes of finished products are produced annually—such as fish fingers, fishcakes or fish delicacies—making almost 100 tonnes a day.
The domestic fish consumer can buy the Cuxhaven fish specialist's entire range, fresh each day, from the company's own fish sales department. In addition, the company delivers to specialist wholesalers and retailers, supermarkets and caterers in Germany, under its own label. However, the fish supplier sees its core business as a producer of what are known as Private Labels, that is branded products. For example, it supplies the discount chain Aldi with its "Eskimo" and "Al Mare" brands. Overall, the deep-frozen lines account for 35 to 40 percent of total turnover, delicacies for about 35 percent, wet fish for around 20 percent and smoked fish for about 8 percent.
Combining tradition and innovation
Basically, the company puts its market success down to three factors: firstly, to its unique expertise in wet fish; secondly, to its unique position as a supplier of the full range with the know-how advantage that gives it; and thirdly, to the fact that it is constantly listening to the requirements of major buyers and end consumers and can innovate accordingly: "Anyone can manufacture fish fingers today of approximately the same quality. One particular challenge is, however, to produce a first-class deep-frozen convenience product from wet fish which has been marinated and also gently smoked, that will meet consumer demands one hundred percent", Marketing Director Ulrich Matuszewski explains. The company is glad to take up this challenge, because as a supplier of the complete range it has the appropriate staff with the right expertise in all areas of fish processing, on hand within its own walls. The magic word is "Synergies".
On account of today's consumer's habits and the fact that an economic return is not made on the relatively expensive raw material fish by selling simple fish products, Matuszewski sees the future of the company very distinctly in the area of high-quality convenience products. These include ready-cooked meals which have a long shelf-life when deep-frozen and can be enjoyed straight away after just a short preparation in the frying pan, microwave or oven, without additional labour.
High freezing speed conserves product quality
When it comes to the quality of the finished product, the speed at which the fish is frozen plays a major role. The faster the heat exchange takes place, the smaller the ice crystals formed during freezing, and the better the product quality. This is where Air Products comes into the picture. It has worked together with Hussmann & Hahn for more than 20 years, apart from a brief gap. At that time the industrial gas producer installed the first nitrogen-operated freezer on site to freeze fish fingers in breadcrumbs; and other products followed. Today, Air Products has two modern tunnel freezers installed at the fish specialist company in Cuxhaven, one in the deep-frozen products department and one in the wet fish department. These two tunnel freezers of the Cryo-Quick™ type operate on liquid nitrogen at minus 196°C. These units freeze up to 15 tonnes of fish a day. "The processing of fillets left in their natural state, with differing thicknesses and sizes, which are therefore quite difficult to freeze evenly, is a major challenge to a manufacturer of freezer systems, but Air Products is undoubtedly up to this challenge™, comments Detlef Jagolski, Production Manager at Hussmann & Hahn.
In addition, Air Products installed a plate freezer in the wet fish department in October 1999. This had become necessary due to the rising demands placed on freezers for the manufacture of convenience products. "We want to develop unique, high-quality ready-made meals and our experience as wet fish processors enables us to do this. However, to achieve this, we also need the expertise of a partner such as Air Products in the field of freezing", Jagolski continues.
Existing systems employed with skill
In the specific case of the plate freezer, the problem faced was to freeze semi-finished products, for example fish for further processing with marinade or with side-dishes such as vegetables. Detlef Jagolski and Willi Heeren of Air Products jointly thought about how this task could best be solved. One of Air Products' proven liquid nitrogen freezers would not have been suitable in this case. However, an ammonia-operated plate freezer alone would not have achieved the freezing speed and therefore the output and product quality required for premium convenience products from the Cuxhaven fish specialist. The faster the heat is removed from a product, the smaller the ice crystals formed. This protects the cell membrane from damage, minimises thawing loss, and therefore improves product quality. In addition, greater dimensional accuracy of the fish dishes is achieved. A higher freezing speed also ensures that a larger quantity of product can be frozen per hour.
The solution finally arrived at was to use liquid nitrogen: Hussmann & Hahn and Air Products together re-commissioned an existing ammonia plate freezer. The ammonia circuit of the plate freezer is now cooled by liquid nitrogen in a heat exchanger-instead of using compressors and aftercoolers. This enables the ammonia, which has a temperature of minus 35°C, to be cooled to minus 65°C. This allows the fish company to guarantee high product quality with greater freezing volumes due to the lower temperature of the ammonia, and without having to install a completely new, costly freezer. "The things we have learned to value about Air Products in our 20 years of working with them are the company's great flexibility, its readiness to serve the customer, its good service and, of course, its special know-how in the field of freezing, and this has once again paid off in relation to our delicate convenience products" comments Detlef Jagolski. "As far as we are concerned, we would like to collaborate even more closely, because we can only profit from the extensive knowledge Air Products has acquired over the years as one of the leaders in liquid nitrogen freezing. This is especially true when it comes to our product-fish-which is something quite exceptional". To feed the two tunnel freezers and the plate freezer with liquid nitrogen, Air Products has installed two nitrogen tanks on the works site, each containing 28,000 cubic metres of nitrogen.
At the moment, the two companies are working on further product innovations. Whilst the fish specialist is experimenting in its trials kitchen, Air Products is developing the appropriate equipment.
Innovative cooling technology for the food industry
Air Products developed its first cryogenic freezing system (cryogenics is the science of freezing at extremely low temperatures) specifically for the food industry almost 30 years ago. This can be done, for example, using liquid nitrogen which has a naturally low temperature of minus 196°C. Air Products' cooling and freezing systems can be integrated smoothly into processing operations as the machines are constructed on the modular principle in various sizes and sections. The innovative cooling technologies from Air Products open up new markets to food manufacturers. Examples are systems which enable meat products to be cut wafer-thin as well as liquids and pastes to be frozen into granulate or pellet form. The range of systems for cooling and freezing extends from the tried and tested standard Cryo-Quick™ freezer and the high-performance version Cryo-Quick™ VT through the Cryo-Batch™ system for batch-wise cooling or freezing and the Cryo-Stream™ for freezing products in paste form, right up to the Cryo-Cool™ for cooling sauces and other liquids. A feature common to all these systems is the fact that they are highly economic whilst achieving optimal product quality at the same time. Air Products expertise also includes the packaging of foodstuffs of all sorts using inert gases to protect the product, and the treatment of effluent using pure oxygen.
© Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., 1998
|
|
