Manufacturing
Issue No. 21 - February/March 2005
Enjoyo-meal
Ready to go
Food export prospect Enjoyo-Meal is the solution to a common problem.
“It was about eight years ago when our two sons were young,”says entrepreneur Simon Koh.
“The first thing they did after returning from school each day was to call my wife and demand ‘I'm hungry, I'm hungry! When are you coming home?’
“To be frank, our two Singapore-born Aussie boys were spoilt with many varieties of good food; those frozen ready meals we bought for them remained in our freezer. They didn't like them at all. So I thought I would develop something for them.”
It was a short leap to realise other working parents would have the same problem.
“At that time, our seafood export business was processing a very high-tech product — shelf-stable pure shark's fin in a pouch — for a Japanese company,” Simon says.
“The Japanese acknowledged that we could produce a much better quality product than another Japanese processor. They shipped the refined shark's fin raw material from Japan for us to process into the ready-to-use product and shipped back to Japan for them.
“So I started to use the same technology to experiment with some shelf-stable tasty meals for our sons.”
A simply defined goal, but hard to achieve and, like any new food processing initiative, it encountered problems.
“Most food technologists would agree the problem is that, by killing all pathogenic micro-organisms in a hermetically sealed container to make the product shelf stable, the process also kills the flavour, the texture and the colour!”
“It’s safe to eat but unpalatable.”
Simon’s breakthrough is a valued trade secret.
“It took me eight years to refine the process,” he says. “Now I can proudly say that currently, we are the only company in Australia that can process a shelf-stable meal with meat, in a tray.”
Enjoyo-Meal produces several different dishes, some Euro...
