Pilot Plant
Leatherhead's pilot plant facilities cover many food product areas and provide simple unit operations that can be linked together as appropriate to simulate more complex processes.
Key areas include:
Pilot plant facilities include heating and cooling technologies, processing vessels of different sizes, various mixers, homogenisers, filling and packing equipment. We also provide specific processing equipment for products, e.g. dressings, ice cream, carbonated beverages, and a dedicated chocolate processing lab (including enrober and cooling tunnel).
Leatherhead has strong partnerships with equipment companies, which involve taking an active role in assessing and evaluating the potential applications of new technologies. This means that we remain at the cutting-edge of emerging processing technologies and can extend access to these innovative solutions to our clients.
- Three roll refiner
- Mini conche
- Tempering unit (lab scale)
- Mini enrober
- Cooling tunnels (Static programmable, Continuous)
- Toffee cooker (Lab scale)
- Sugar puller (Lab scale)
Soft Drinks
- Carbonation plant
- Carbonation testing
- Crown capper
Ices Creams and Mousses
- Technogel continuous ice cream freezer
- Mondo continuous aerator
- Mechanical peelers
- Potato chippers
- Bowl chopper
- Meat mincers
Development Kitchens
- Bench-scale product development
- Development of back-of-pack cooking instructions
- Static laboratory retort
- Armfield mini UHT plant
- Steam jacketed vessels
- Stephan Universal batch mixer (direct/in-direct heating, with or without vacuum)
- Stephan Universal batch mixer (direct/in-direct heating, with or without vacuum)
- Bratt pan
- Domestic microwaves and ovens
- Food service microwaves and ovens
- Combination ovens (convection, microwave & Infrared heating)
- Rotisserie
- Steam ovens
- Rotary oven
- Mini vacuum cooker
- Deep fat fryers
- Stephan Universal batch mixer (chopping/blending, direct/in-direct heating or cooling, with or without vacuum)
- Z-blade mixer
- Hobart planetary mixers (industrial and lab scale)
- Ribbon blender
Sieving
- Russell Finex Compact 600 Sieve
Homogenisation
- Colloid mill
- Pressure homogeniser
- Sonolator
- Silverson high shear batch mixers (industrial and lab scale)
Chilling and Freezing
- Blast chiller
- Blast freezer
- High capacity chilled and frozen storage
- Cryo-crystalliser unit
- Spray dryer
- Freeze dryer
- Calmic tray oven
- MAP pouch and tray sealer
- Vacuum sealer
- Gas analysis
- Binder constant climate chambers (variable temperature/humidity/light)
- High capacity environmental rooms (range of temperature and humidity profiles available covering climatic zones I - IV; temperate, Mediterranean/subtropical, hot-dry, hot-humid)
- Incubator cabinets
- Temperature monitoring (Luxtron in-microwave, DaqPro in-oven, Comark-climatic storage rooms)
- Humidity monitoring (Comark-climatic storage rooms)
Emerging Processing Technologies
We have partnerships with equipment companies, assessing and evaluating the potential applications of new technologies. These are available for use on client's products
To learn more about our Pilot Plant, please contact Matthew Clarke.
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