Background
With a factory in Merthyr Tydfil, Kepak has over 50 years’ expertise in supplying prime cuts of meat to international retailers, restaurants and household foodservice names.
Kepak approached ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre for support with validating the on-pack cooking instructions for a new range of steaks and burgers which were ready for launch in a major retailer.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
Having been provided with product samples, the food safety experts at ZERO2FIVE used their calibrated ovens and dataloggers to measure the temperature of products in real time during their cooking process. This allowed ZERO2FIVE to determine whether the samples achieved safe internal temperatures when cooked according to the times and temperatures specified on-pack.
In addition, the external and internal appearance of the cooked products was evaluated to determine whether they met the desired quality attributes.
Benefits of the support
Outsourcing cooking instruction validation to ZERO2FIVE provided additional technical capacity to support Kepak’s in-house team. As a result of the support, Kepak successfully validated the product range’s cooking instructions to ensure food safety.
Kepak have a number of new exciting product launches in the pipeline and plan to continue to work closely with ZERO2FIVE on future cooking validation projects.
Craig Messruther, Manufacturing NPD Sales Manager, Kepak:
“The ZERO2FIVE team has provided our business great support that has enabled us to launch products safely.
“The team have great knowledge and are always willing to help and support, both at short notice and within tight timescales.
“I would highly recommend ZERO2FIVE as a company to work with due to their professionalism, attention to detail and extensive product knowledge.”
