Meal Innovations
Development
Kumara Sesame (Click to enlarge)
Soups, salads, main meals and desserts are produced at Meal Innovation's factory, each developed specifically for a client or a particular meal range. The meals vary from popular ethnic foods, such as butter chicken, to more traditional New Zealand food, for example cottage pie.
Development of a meal begins when a client discusses what they want with production manager Ana Tuimana.
Ana works with a consultant chef and gives him guidelines as to what the client requires. He is expected to come up with two to five recipes to trial, keeping to ingredients which are of good quality and easy to source. Generally there are no cost constraints but the company has a range of costs for cheaper and more expensive meals. Meat meals, such as the Lamb Shanks, are the most expensive.
Lasagne is a long-established Kiwi favourite and a popular Meal Innovations product. The lasagne meal was developed when the client required something that would appeal to a large proportion of customers, and asked the chef to develop a selection of meals which could be easily and successfully reheated at home.
Equipment for preparation of the ingredients
In this case the chef worked on a number of recipes, including the lasagne, which he then gave to Ana, who makes any changes in consultation with him. Each trial recipe is cooked and evaluated on site. There is a lot of back-and-forth as the recipe is retested and Ana considers "What's missing from this?" This is a long process and taste is only one factor. The chef must also consider labour and whether 100 portions of the recipe could be made in half an hour, whether ingredients could be weighed out beforehand or not and whether it can fit into current factory procedure.
