The project is designed to deliver:
The Steamdry process will enable the food processing machinery and food processing SMEs to recover their competitiveness via the production of high quality dried products, with lower process impact on energy environment.
The project is being financed by the European Commission-Research Executive Agency (EC-REA), under the 7th program, which provides financial aid to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to carry out Research & Development activities. Under the terms of the contract, a consortium of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) had to be formed, including some Research Centre’s and a British University.
The consortium partners are:
SMEs: HRS Heat Exchangers (project coordinator); Arnold & Partner AG; Avenisense SAS; and Fiordelisi Srl
RTDs performers: Tecnologías Avanzadas Inspiralia SL; Brunel University; and Fondazione Parco Tecnologica Padano.
HRS Heat Exchangers will be acting as coordinator for the Steamdry project and will be adding 30 years+ experience in food processing and heat transfer technologies to the project mix. The Steamdry Project stems from the current trend in the EU market for processed foods: There is now an increasing demand by consumers for foods that have undergone fewer changes during processing, foods that look less processed and are closer to their original state while retaining high nutritive values, flavour and a ‘natural’ image. These pressures are especially significant for a SME dominated sector. While dried foods represent more than €8bn of sales in Europe, these sales are currently in stagnation or declining.
Food processing machinery SMEs must not only improve the drying process to achieve the high quality demanded across the EU customer base, but also they must tackle the energy consumption and pollution issues which are typical of such equipment.
For food machinery SMEs, now is the time to respond to these demands and enable the dried food industries to recover their competitiveness. To do so, they need to face three main challenges:
Source: HRS Heat Exchangers Ltd
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