Major International

The Laska bowl chopper offers control and consistent blending, along with automation if required.

The bowl choppers installed by Major International can store recipe information for the next stage of process automation.

Major International provides over 18 varieties of soups, sauces, stock bases and demi-glace.

Only fresh ingredients and no additives are used in Major International's recipes.

The bowl choppers take chicken into a smooth paste for the next stage; five out of the 19 stock bases are Halal.

Major International is a company that specialises in the production of soups, sauces, stocks and gravies. All of the products have entirely natural ingredients with no artificial additives and are manufactured in the EU-approved factory in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK.

The products are supplied to the food manufacturing markets, including the cook-chill, ready meals industry and also the catering trade.

Products include gravy, stock and sauce powders and pastes in a variety of flavours such as chicken, vegetable, beef, lamb, mushroom, salmon, lobster, turkey, blue cheese and a whole host of others. They are produced in number of pack sizes in polyethylene tubs/jars sachets and even in a pump dispenser for use with resealable marinade bags; the latter is a new development for the Indian restaurant trade.

The company offers a full support service to customers, including recipe development, technical support and trial samples.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACILITY

In January 2007, the Major International facility in Wellingborough upgraded some of its processing equipment to improve the speed and efficiency of the production process. The company installed two bowl choppers to improve the automation of the process. The equipment was installed by Union Food Machinery (UFM) of Northampton. UFM provided on-site technical advice before and after the installation and there is a maintenance and service contract in place.

The equipment supplied was manufactured by Laska of Austria and included a KU500 500l bowl capacity chopper and a KCU200 200l bowl capacity chopper. The bowl choppers not only provide more consistent blending of ingredients, but can also interact with a fully automated process using a PLC control option; Major International wants to move towards more automation.

The bowl choppers offer a controllable mixing speedup and an infinitely variable cutting speed up to the maximum as well as forward and reverse mixing. The two bowl choppers could also be installed with a recipe management system and a modem link for updating of process and recipe data via internet control.

The meat and other ingredients for the production of the stock, sauce or gravy are prepared by hand according to the recipe and are then weighed into the bowl chopper where they are converted into a very smooth paste ready for the next stage of the process.

RANGE OF PRODUCTS

Major International also provides a range of specialist products such as Halal-certified mixes and stocks; five of the 19 stock bases are Halal. Alongside this, because of the areas of use of their products, such as in hospitals, there has to be a careful monitoring of salt and fat.

Stock bases in savoury chicken, lamb, beef, vegetable and cheese varieties have less than 0.5g of fat per 100g and are preservative free. In addition salt is strictly limited, with powder mixes and levels having less than 1g of salt per kg of mix.

David Bryant, managing director of Major International, commented: “Our aim is to create products that make caterers’ lives simpler and in today’s multi-ethnic society it is important, and only right, that we think about the different social and religious requirements of the consumer.”