When Indulgence Patisserie, the manufacturer of premium frozen desserts, expanded into a second factory it was an opportunity for the company to review its production capacity. By investing in Air Products' Freshline® Multi-Purpose (MP) tunnel freezer, Indulgence Patisserie has increased the efficiency of its production lines and is able to react quickly to changing customer requirements and new food trends.
Taking control
Temperature control is one of the most important factors in delivering a quality dessert, as the cost of premium ingredients is too high to make mistakes. The Freshline® MP tunnel freezer enables Indulgence Patisserie to adjust the temperature set-point, retention time and fan speeds within seconds. The customer can save these settings as a recipe to allow for ease of production and repeatable performance. In addition, the tunnel freezer is ultra-fast, meaning desserts can be frozen in minutes rather than hours – transforming the way the company works.
John Broughton, Indulgence Patisserie's Production Manager, says:
This tunnel freezer has made my life much simpler. Instead of having to wait overnight for products to reach the correct temperature, the tunnel brings desserts right down to -1°C in less than seven minutes. As a result, I can now run 10,000 desserts, or more, through the tunnel in a day.
Not only has the tunnel freezer enabled us to increase our production capacity, it's straight forward to use and provides easy access for cleaning, which is very important in our industry. 
Adapting to new products
Indulgence Patisserie's customers have many different requirements, and creating new products that respond to the latest food trends, such as the rise of plant-based eating, keep its New Product Development team busy.
John continues:
One of the features of the freezer that we particularly like is the option to quick freeze layers. This gives us the opportunity to produce a dessert with many different flavours by building up layers, meaning we can offer real variety to our customers.
Some toppings are heavier than others and alcohol, for example, needs a harder freeze so being able to produce desserts layer by layer overcomes these potential issues. To prevent heavier top layers from sinking through the product, desserts are sent through the nitrogen tunnel to stabilise the product. The speed of the freezer allows us to complete each layer quickly and get it ready for its next stage of production without holding up the manufacturing process.
A bespoke approach
Indulgence Patisserie has recently upgraded its freezer to a bespoke model which fits perfectly in its production line. Initial laboratory trials on the Indulgence Patisserie products allowed Air Products to calculate the optimum sized Freshline MP freezer to ensure the best performance and efficiency were achieved. As well as being made to measure, it meets the highest hygiene standards allowing the customer to quickly and efficiently clean the freezer after production and advanced safety technology. It also has a touchscreen interface, which can link to remote monitoring, allowing the operator to view and control all temperature settings digitally.
