OAL News
OAL discusses APRIL™ at Future Food Horizons
Back in October, OAL travelled to Chester to take part in the Future Food Horizons Conference and introduce APRIL to industry and academic professionals. The conference, led by The University of Chester, was designed to tackle social challenges through food science and innovation. Jake Norman from OAL joined speakers from Innocent, Quorn, Muller and Sainsburys to discuss how they could turn their insights into food and innovation into a solution for social challenges.
Jake's presentation explains how OAL are using insights from the automotive industry to change food manufacturing with the introduction of APRIL™.
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Harry Norman on the launch of APRIL
Harry Norman spoke to Food Bev Magazine back in October, about the introduction of APRIL, robotic food processing. We were invited to speak about innovation at the Next Generation Manufacturing conference at Gulfood Manufacturing in Dubai. Whilst at the show Darren Wood of FoodBev media caught up with OAL's Managing Director, Harry Norman, to discuss our new product.
“We are launching a new product into the market called APRIL which will revolutionise the way the front end processing of food factories is handled.”
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APRIL™ wins Cambridge Open Innovation Food & FMCG Pitching Event
Our game-changing food processing innovation APRIL™ won over judges from Tesco, General Mills and Mars at the fourth Food & FMCG Innovation Pitching Event. The Cambridge University event took place at Food Matters Live In London, where we pitched APRIL (Automated Processing Robotic Ingredient Loading) to the esteemed group of judges. The judges recognised APRIL's ability to change the way we manufacture food by offering "chef-standard" food whilst significantly reducing production costs.
APRIL is the first of its kind and represents a step change in food processing; enabling parallel food processing and the emulation of a professional chef on an industrial scale.
APRIL will be available for demonstrations in early 2016 at our test centre at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing.
OAL leads research project into cryogenic cooling
We’re pleased to announce the launch of our latest research project set to revolutionise ready meals with cryogenic cooling in partnership with BOC, The University of Lincoln and Iceland Manufacturing. The £969,000 project, part funded by Innovate UK will last two years and aims to develop an innovative cooking and cryogenic cooling system for ready meals providing a step change in product quality and healthiness. The project seeks to help tackle the current levels of food waste and increase the speed of production.
The project will combine our rapid cooking Steam Infusion Vaction™ technology with a cryogenic cooler from BOC. It follows our first major Innovate UK project ‘Nutrition for Life’, that has focused on understanding the full operating envelope of our Steam Infusion cooking technology and it's effects on nutrition and food safety.
Over the two-year project, the team plans to gain a full scientific understanding of the effects of rapid cooling using liquid nitrogen on sauces and soups, and the vegetables, fruits and meats they contain in order to maximise nutritional values. Product shelf life could also be increased and waste minimised as we will develop a fully flexible process that will reduce production, cleaning and changeover times for increasingly variable supply requirements.
Interview on APRIL™ & Food is Life at PPMA 2015
At the PPMA Show 2015, we were interviewed about our involvement with Food is Life and APRIL™, our food processing robot. APRIL will enable food processing without any platforms or pipework in a smaller factory. Bringing together state-of-the-art technologies, she will increase capacity, significantly reduce the number of operators and produce safer, better looking, tastier foods.
Developed with the University of Lincoln at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing, APRIL enables parallel food processing and can emulate a chef’s method of cooking on an industrial scale. Utilising grant funding from Innovate UK, we have put our expertise and skills into making this research concept a reality with a demonstration available early 2016.
We have been working closely with members of the Food Is Life consortium in the development of APRIL™. Food is Life firmly believes that the food industry can benefit from learning and exploiting technologies from the automotive industry to improve production and safety of food.