French-based food manufacturing equipment companies are poised to enter, or expand their presence, in the U.S. market with unique processing, packaging and quality control equipment. This is the second in a series on French technologies that provide state-of-the-art solutions to common processing problems.

Barriquand Steriflow (Paris, FR [e-mail: Barriquand.Steriflow.Paris@wanadoo.fr]) offers sterilizing retorts both in static and rotary designs and was the first to supply microprocessor control of sterilizing cycles. Its systems use a streaming, or cascading of superheated water requiring only a small quantity of water circulated through a closed loop heat exchanger system. Its batch/continuous retort system processes all types of packaging such as tin, aluminum, glass and plastic with traditional closures or peelable lids. All industry segments requiring thermal processing, from milk and mushrooms to meat and sous vide, can benefit from these systems.

Serap (Gorron, FR) [e-mail: serap@serap-industries.fr] offers the dairy industry a convenient and efficient way to cool milk. In its 36-year history, Serap has manufactured nearly 64,000 milk cooling tanks now used in more than 70 countries. Sizes range from 180 to 24,000 liters and come in a variety of designs. Value-added peripherals such as computer monitoring and control, CIP and high efficiency refrigeration make the units unique in the market.