Wireless Battery-less Easy-to-use Food Probe for Freezing Equipment

SENSeOR and its customer Coldline present a new feature for high-end blast chillers: an innovative food probe easy to use and easy to clean, cable-free and without battery.

Valbonne Sophia Antipolis, France – April 4th 2015 – Blast chilling and the quick cold technology are now well-known and used in professional kitchens and laboratories to cool cooked food products and dishes instead of traditional cooling at room temperature or in a refrigerator which causes a rapid deterioration of the good. This method protects the food from bacterial attack, extends storage times and reduces the weight loss due to evaporation, while maintaining the quality of the product.

Blast chillers are today often equipped with a wired probe, but getting rid of the cable would facilitate customers work and enhance ease-of-use. Wireless probes do exist already, but they are battery-powered, which makes them not compatible with a use at low or high temperatures.

That’s where SAW (Surface Acoustic Waves) technology brings a major advantage as it enables wireless temperature sensors not requiring any power source. The food probe which was developed is based on SENSeOR’s patented SAW technology components. The OEM version of the transceiver enables to interface it directly with the equipment electronics and provides additional monitoring data to intelligent cooking systems.

In blast chillers, the food probes enable to control the temperature at the heart of the food. This allows adjusting the chilling process length to what is exactly necessary: optimal for food safety, precise with respect to recipe, yet not wasting energy nor time. Indeed, without a food probe, the temperature is only measured inside the blast chiller, with a level of uncertainty regarding the real temperature inside the food. To cope with food safety regulations, security margins in process length are needed. With the direct measurement of the temperature at the heart of the food in real-time, these margins are no longer necessary: the equipment is either stopped or freed earlier for the next batch, saving time and money and easing kitchen organization. The probe performs a perfect constant monitoring of temperature during the cooling phase and provides the data needed in critical control points (CCP) monitoring in HACCP processes.

Getting rid of the hard-to-clean and costly-to-replace cables and without the need to replace any battery, this new food probe adds to the benefits of the current solution. “We are glad that our sensors for food probes contribute to the quality and efficiency improvements in the blast chilling process” says François Gégot, SENSeOR’s Business Development Director. “We see many applications of our wireless and passive sensors in cookware monitoring and Food and Beverage processes, as they enable the remote and continuous control of critical points at high and low temperatures – from cryogenic to 350°C, at the heart of the dishes or the cooking or freezing equipment.”

Information and inquiries: contact@senseor.com

SENSeOR’s Italian partner for sales and technical support: AXU – Mario Maggi – www.axu.it

About SENSeOR

SENSeOR exploits Surface Acoustic Waves (SAW) to conceive unique-patented wireless passive sensors for temperature, pressure, strain and torque measurements. With infinite autonomy and no maintenance required, these sensors perform enhanced condition monitoring in Automation, Energy, Transportation – even in motion or rotation – like inside engines, in switchgears, in tunnel ovens or on moving belts.
Created in 2006, SENSeOR is headquartered in Sophia-Antipolis (France) with offices in Besançon (France).
Its expert engineer team provides field engineering services and customized developments in addition to its standard sensor portfolio, to help its customers solve their measurement challenges.

Since 2012, SENSeOR is part of WIKA Group and benefits from the support and resources of this major player in the sensor market.