Over the last 25 years Driedfresh Ltd have developed and refined a process to dry fruit, vegetables, sea foods and other foodstuff from fresh without losing any of the nutrients. The process does not involve freeze drying, but rather is done at low temperatures, low pressure (vacuum) and oxygen free.
“It has not been easy, transferring energy in a vacuum is difficult,” explains Richard Guy from the company. “We are a R&D company and a supplier of dryers and are continually improving the process. We are now using machine learning algorithms, whereby the machine will learn and adjust for each different product to be more efficient.”
The drying is done at below 30 degrees Celsius to lock in the nutrients to preserve the pure, natural produce.
The dried produce has a very long storage life and can be rehydrated easily with a gold standard nutrient preservation status. Retaining 99.9% of the plant's vitamins, natural colour, flavour and aroma.
"We call it "Osmotic Vacuum Drying in a Modified Atmosphere" OVDMA. Facilities using our dryers in New Zealand supplied Ti-Ora tea with their ingredients and also organic companies with perfect kale and beetroot powder are great examples of what can be achieved.”
A Driedfresh produce online wholesale shop can be found at www.foodtogetthru.com
“The technology, apart from drying/preserving perfectly, also allows fruit and vegetables to be infused with other fruit and vegetable extracts, concentrates, anthocyanin or polyphenols to enhance bioactivity and vitamin and mineral content before the commencement of this rapid low moisture drying process. The end result is a robust dried product with a higher yield that will command a high selling price due to superior colour, flavour and bioactivity. Food ready to eat when you want or need.”
The Driedfresh OVDMA process is ideal for drying ‘Egg of the sun’ mangoes, which sell for ~$3000 each. The dried fruit is sent to the high end Japanese retailers. The dried products eg. beetroot (not extract or juice) can also be used by athletes to improve performance and defence forces that need to survive on rations.
The drying units are housed in shipping containers and can be easily placed to dry produce straight from the field. This allows the ability to set up a mini processing plant with just 3-5 units.
The units sell for NZ$650,000 (385,000 Euro approx.) but are now available for lease for NZ$78,000 per annum (46,000 Euro approx.)
The units can be shipped globally and the latest update to the technology can be easily uploaded. See the dryer for lease brochure
For more information:
Richard Guy
DriedFresh
Auckland, NZ
Mob: +64 21 0319373
DDI: +64 9 9749101
www.driedfresh.co.nz
https://twitter.com/Driedfresh/media
www.foodtogetthru.com