Slashdot Mirror
Military Tech Could Be Amazon's Secret To Cheap, Non-Refrigerated Food (cnbc.com)
According to CNBC, Amazon is exploring a technology first developed for the U.S. military to produce tasty prepared meals that do not need refrigeration, as it looks for new ways to muscle into the $700 billion U.S. grocery business. From the report: The world's biggest online retailer has discussed selling ready-to-eat dishes such as beef stew and a vegetable frittata as soon as next year, officials at the startup firm marketing the technology told Reuters. The dishes would be easy to stockpile and ship because they do not require refrigeration and could be offered quite cheaply compared with take-out from a restaurant. Delivering meals would build on the company's AmazonFresh service, which has been delivering groceries to customers' homes for a decade. It could also complement Amazon's planned $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market and Amazon's checkout-free convenience store, which is in the test stage.
The pioneering food-prep tech, known as microwave assisted thermal sterilization, or MATS, was developed by researchers at Washington State University, and is being brought to market by a venture-backed startup called 915 Labs, based in Denver. The method involves placing sealed packages of food in pressurized water and heating them with microwaves for several minutes, according to 915 Labs. Unlike traditional processing methods, where packages are in pressure cookers for up to an hour until both bacteria and nutrients are largely gone, the dishes retain their natural flavor and texture, the company said. They also can sit on a shelf for a year, which would make them suitable for Amazon's storage and delivery business model.
The pioneering food-prep tech, known as microwave assisted thermal sterilization, or MATS, was developed by researchers at Washington State University, and is being brought to market by a venture-backed startup called 915 Labs, based in Denver. The method involves placing sealed packages of food in pressurized water and heating them with microwaves for several minutes, according to 915 Labs. Unlike traditional processing methods, where packages are in pressure cookers for up to an hour until both bacteria and nutrients are largely gone, the dishes retain their natural flavor and texture, the company said. They also can sit on a shelf for a year, which would make them suitable for Amazon's storage and delivery business model.
"Delivering meals would build on the company's AmazonFresh service.."
With the difference that it would be AmazonNonFresh Service.
Anyone who's had to deal with MREs knows that nothing good will come of this... (nor will anything come out of you, but that's a different problem).
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Several times in fact, various flavors. They actually aren't bad. Until you're on day 4 with the same damned fettuccine alfredo, then you start thinking of that hot girlfriend who couldn't boil water without messing up.
// then put the water into ice cube trays
/// voila! Next time you need boiled water just take it out of the freezer
I cook. I enjoy cooking. I use spices to cut the salt and fat, and most people complement me on my cooking. I can't imagine any prepackaged meal being either A) better than I could make myself; or B) Healthier than I can make myself.
I can see C) faster than I can make myself; and D) humping it in a desert and wanna eat
/ protip: To cook pasta faster boil water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
Some years ago, a processor was test marketing prepackaged irradiated food. They went to great lengths to produce some high quality meals. A few of us went on a week long hike and I was responsible for buying the food for myself and my brother. Everyone else suffered with macaroni and cheese or some freeze-dried hiking meals. My bro and I had beef bourguignon and similar dishes. We were not well liked by the end of the hike.
Have gnu, will travel.
MREs today are so much better than the original dehydrated pork patty and dehydrated fruit cocktail. Not to mention the original 4 hot dogs or meatballs in barbecue sauce. The biggest problem with the providing tasty food is having to smash it flat in those little packets. They have found ways of including far more enjoyable fare. If they packed it in a more appeasing manor they may be able to turn out decent meals.
This is not for the Whole Food food delivery market or for the already prepared ingredients delivered with a recipe, such as blue apron. They are doing other things for that and the people that are paying a huge premium for those services are not going to purchase something like this.
This however works great to try to grab the business lunch menu and even the emergency preparation segment.
Just getting a few percent of the business people to purchase a few meals to store at the desk and get them to eat one a week would be a worth while market.
I thought this technology had existed for many decades already. It's called a "can". Easy-to-open and lightweight plastic packaging makes things more convenient and cheaper to ship, but it's not a fundamental game changer.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
The implied meaning is micronutrients, i.e. vitamins and enzymes and maybe the more digestible forms of minerals. Macronutrients - proteins, fats, and carbohydrates - may be degraded by use of a pressure cooker, but won't lose much of their caloric value. In some cases, the cooking makes the foods more digestible by breaking down fibers.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"Anyone attempting to use 915 MHz microwave to sterilize food while retaining the food's texture and taste will have to pay royalties to the following patents"
Those patents aren't for using 915mhz.
"Hundreds of 2450 and 915 MHz systems between 10 to 200 kW heating capacities are used in the food industry for precooking bacons (e.g., used in Subways restaurants), tempering deep frozen meats when making meat patties, and precooking many other foods products [2, 3, 4, 5]. Commercial systems performing microwave pasteurization and/or sterilization of foods are currently available in Europe (e.g. TOP’s Foods); however, the use of microwaves in USA to produce shelf stable low acid (pH>4.6) foods requires FDA acceptance."
https://labs.wsu.edu/microwave...
https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodS...
The bottom line here is that Amazon is introducing a retort pouch food product line - a technology that has been on the market for 40 years. It has been extremely popular around the world, and is found in U.S. products (I buy boxed retort pouch products at Costco all the time) though for some reason the U.S. public has preferred canned foods.
TFA calls this "the cutting-edge food technology" which is overselling it a bit. MATS is one of several advanced retorting systems for preparing the pouches, and has been in use in various forms for decades, and is similar in performance to other technologies like PATS (pressure assisted thermal sterilization) - a form of pressure cooking. In 2006 a patent was issued for a particular refinement of MATS, using a specific frequency (915 MHZ), which is being aggressively promoted by the start-up patent licensee 915Labs, but it is not clear this is really a big advance in a well established industry.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj