Company At A Glance
Business Type
Food Processing Company
SR&ED Category
Experimental Development
Team Size
22
Scope
Thermal Processing, Moisture Retention, Product Quality
Province
Alberta
The Challenge
The company needed to meet food safety temperature and hold-time requirements for a ready-to-eat product without damaging the final product. Increasing oven temperature and cook time achieved the required internal temperature, but it caused excessive moisture loss, dry texture, surface cracking, and colour defects.
Standard vendor manuals and industry guidance explained how to reach the required temperature, but they did not provide a workable process for this specific product, oven configuration, and quality standard.
What We Documented
01
Uncertainty
Uncertainty
The uncertainty was whether the product could consistently reach the required internal temperature and hold time while maintaining acceptable moisture, texture, appearance, and yield.
02
Iterations
Iterations
The company tested different ramp rates, peak temperatures, hold times, steam injection timing, airflow settings, loading patterns, and small formulation adjustments. Some trials achieved food safety but damaged product quality, while others preserved quality but did not consistently meet the required internal temperature profile.
03
Knowledge Gained
Knowledge Gained
The company gained new process knowledge about how this product responded to elevated cooking conditions, humidity, airflow, loading density, and formulation changes inside the production oven.
Results
Why This Qualified
- Required experimentation beyond standard oven settings and vendor guidance
- Standard cooking methods met safety targets but caused unacceptable quality losses
- Moisture loss, cracking, colour, and texture changed unpredictably under elevated conditions
- Multiple controlled production trials were needed to balance safety, yield, and product quality
- New knowledge was gained about the product’s behaviour under specific thermal processing conditions
