Meat + Poultry - July 2016 - 30

PLANT PROFILE

The interior of one of the 10
cooking tanks for the sous
vide process has an 8,000to 10,000-lb. capacity.

This plant
is designed
to take
SugarCreek
"beyond
bacon."

30

SOUS VIDE SOLUTIONS
While the plant does have
conventionallcooking capabilties, Chief
Information Officer (CIO) Rodden is most
excited about a newer process SugarCreek
has perfected. While not everything can be
automated, SugarCreek has found ways to
highly automate the "sous vide" process and
adapt it to many different food products.
Developed by French chefs, the food item
is vacuum sealed in film and lowered into
hot water - 132˚ to 140˚ F, depending on
product type - a lower temperature, slowercooking approach to perfectly cooked food.
Temperature controlled to within 0.10 degrees
eliminates overcooking. And because nothing
or no one touches the food once it goes in the
bag, several potential sources of contamination
are eliminated. They are processing everything
from beef to poultry to fish and seafood in
commercial quantities this way.
Cooking in a sealed film results in a high
quality product, retaining moisture and
enhancing flavor, tenderness and texture.
However, the largest benefit to sous vide
cooking is the consistency it offers.
The interesting thing for SugarCreek is
that technology and automation allow them to
process in large quantities, but also because

MEAT+ POULTRY | 07.16 | www.meatpoultry.com

of the precision control and monitoring, to
profitably process small quantities for either
smaller customers or for shorter runs of a larger
array of variations of products for big brands.
SugarCreek sees the industry moving from large
product runs to smaller, shorter runs of more
specialized products and ready-to-eat items.
As for the big runs, the Indiana plant has
10 sous vide cooking tanks, served by an
automated gantry system to load and unload
the whole array, if necessary. At 8,000 to 10,000
lbs. per tank, that's 80,000 to 100,000 lbs. of
food at one run.
The sous vide process opens up all kinds
of possibilities, so SugarCreek has assembled
a team of corporate chefs to explore new
products and recipes their customers could
use, the kind of advances SugarCreek is
calling "Brandworthy Food Solutions." To
demonstrate the difference in quality sous
vide offers, SugarCreek's Culinary and R&D
teams will co-develop recipes with customers
using their in-house test kitchen. Dishes are
then presented to customers for tasting and
commercialization planning.
Another advantage to the sous vide method
includes "cleaner" labels. Sous vide requires
fewer or no preservatives, resulting in a
fresher, high quality product.
Rodden mentioned other changes that his
company and the sous vide approach could
help his customers adapt to. The big brand
name food companies are finding brand
names are not as important as they used to
be. Now, they need to satisfy changing tastes
more quickly. Rodden sees SugarCreek as
positioned to be part of his customer's product
development teams.
These changes contributed to SugarCreek's
owner going out on a limb and investing a lot
of money into their new plant. The flexible but
food safety-conscious design allows raw prep
separation, separation by species and three
cooking halls for different cooking processes.

PRODUCTION PARTNERS
Technology giant Cisco has been a partner
from the beginning. The two companies
spent a year in discovery and design, making
sure the technology was both functional
and accessible to workers in the plant but
remotely and securely accessible to staff in
other SugarCreek plants or equipment vendors'
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Meat + Poultry - July 2016

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