Primel: Prepared Foods, France
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Leading French frozen food processor boosts growth with innovative frozen products
High margin sauce-coated ready meals set for major growth in UK
Primel, a major player in the French deep-frozen ready meals market, has installed two new CRYO-TUMBLER™ liquid nitrogen freezers developed by Air Products to manufacture an innovative range of deep-frozen, sauce-coated products. The company estimates it now has a twelve-month market lead over its competitors.
French sales of Primel's sauce-coated products are rising steeply, and production at the company's factory in Brittany is predicted to increase from 6,000 tonnes in 1996 to 8,000 tonnes of ready meals by the end of 1997, and from 1,500 to 5,000 tonnes of portion-controlled servings in the second half of 1997 alone. According to M. Nicolas, plant manager, and M. Magueur, technical manager, at Primel, this rise in productivity has been made possible by the CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezers, which eliminate the time and cost of separate mixing and coating operations. |
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Sauce-Coated Products
Sauce-coated frozen ready meals have proved to be the most important innovation of the decade in the Continental frozen food industry and are set to be one of the most important areas of new growth in UK frozen foods.
In France, Belgium and Germany these products now account for between 10 and 20 percent of all the frozen meals sold in supermarket freezers, and they are also firmly established in the Swedish and Spanish markets. The products are often sold at premium prices, with manufacturing costs similar to those for conventional products.
Frozen sauce-coated meals are the latest development in the long-term trend towards convenience cooking. Because the ingredients are Individually Quick Frozen (IQF), rather than presented as a solid frozen block, the consumer can select the precise amount required from a packet and heat the product on a cooker or in a microwave, with the correct balance of ingredients determined by the manufacturer.
These 'pan-dishes' (so named because they can be cooked in one pan) are targeted at small or single person households, and have also taken hold in the restaurant sector because of the advantages they offer caterers in terms of both flexibility and speed.
From the frozen food manufacturer's point of view, investing in one additional piece of equipment creates unlimited potential for new product developments based on creative combinations of ingredients, either as side dishes or complete meals.
For UK producers considering production of sauce-coated products, the experience of the Continental market has already identified a range of successful pan-dish recipes, including:
Primel - a market based strategy
Primel has sales of 140m Francs in 1997, 125 employees and supplies, among others, Leclerc, Picard Surgelés, Continent and Casino with premium deep-frozen quality meals.
In 1994 Primel was producing traditional ready meals - boil-in-the-bag and aluminium tray meals - under up-market distributors' own labels. The company's strength lay in the fact that it could handle the entire production process on an industrial scale - from recipe development to food presentation, from packaging through to delivery - while maintaining culinary standards.
When the company's product lines were extended to include the first pan-dishes, the market potential for portion-controlled servings became immediately apparent. To explore the potential of this new market they first tested a brush-based coatings system (drawn directly from the making of potato crisps). Then in 1995 they launched a pan-dish combined with a sauce frozen into nuggets. Although the product sold well, the R&D department - a major force in the company with a budget of 5% of sales - was still not satisfied and work continued on the concept until Primel was sure its product stood out from the competition.
In December 1995, Primel met with Patrick Crénault of Air Products to discuss an efficient coating process that would optimise the distribution of sauce over food leading to simultaneous test with the CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer and a competing process. Air Products won the contract because of the CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer's outstandingly even coating and superior capacity to produce Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) products.
The first CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer (a CT 1400) was installed in September 1996 and a second, larger one (a CT 1900) in May 1997. After six months the first dishes frozen with the new technology appeared in Leclerc, Picard Surgelés, Continent and Casino.
M. Nicholas stresses the clear benefit derived for his customers: "With the help of Air Products, we have been able to demonstrate to buyers from major distributors that we can produce gourmet food through strategic investment in industrial high technology."
Primel's excellent reception with major French distributors has encouraged the company to target commercial and airline catering, home service retailers, as well as overseas expansion into the UK market. And according to Georges Decrop, the European Director of Air Products' Food Group, the ability to work with Primel at the strategic level has paid dividends for both companies. "Our collaboration with Primel clearly illustrates Air Product's intention to be actively involved in its clients' marketing strategy. The CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer has become a decisive weapon in a dynamic company's drive to win new market share in a demanding market."
The CRYO-TUMBLER™ Freezer
The CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer combines the speed and low capital cost advantages of liquid nitrogen freezing with a highly efficient batch production method that simultaneously mixes and coats prepared ingredient meals during the freezing process. The food manufacturer can therefore combine three processes in one system: mixing of ingredients, coating with sauce and IQF freezing, as well as chilling and/or freezing the solid ingredients beforehand.
With this combination of processes the CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer is especially suited to Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) products such as vegetables, IQF products batch-coated with sauce or herbs, and coated mixed ingredient products such as paella ready meals - all of which are used by Primel's customers.
The CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer is a vacuum-insulated, stainless steel cylindrical drum into which ingredients can be entered by hand or with an automatic conveyor. By drum mixing the CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer ensures:
 excellent mixing results
gentle treatment of the ingredients
sustained cryogenic temperature whilst being operationally safe and economic
even application of different sauces
The CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer comes with temperature-controlled nitrogen injection, a water-heated sauce injection lance and a unique process control system. To avoid any loss in temperature or surface icing the drum has been built with a vacuum-insulated double jacket. The constant rotation of the drum, combined with the very low temperature of liquid nitrogen freezing, prevents even the moistest foods from sticking together or to the inside of the freezer.
The entire process can be fully automated with a computerised system. The freezer is operated through a full Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) which stores user-defined recipes based on drum rotation, speed, temperature, process time and sauce injection. Even the cleaning is semi-automatic: the sauce-injection system can also release cleansing fluid inside the drum as soon as production stops, minimising cleaning time.
The CRYO-TUMBLER™ freezer comes in two models, with 450 litre and 850 litre loads. The footprint of the machine is small, taking into account its large production capacity: up to 1/2 tonne an hour (according to coating thickness) with the CT 1400, and 1 to 2 tonnes an hour with the CT 1900. Air Products customers benefit from the wealth of experience the company has gained with this type of product in more than five years and with more than 10 installations.
© Air Products and Chemicals, Inc - 1997.
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fish with various sauces
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