GEA relaunches Vaculiq as demand for artisanal juices grows
GEA is relaunching the Vaculiq juicer into the UK market following tremendous success worldwide – from Scandinavia and Spain to India and Japan. The compact, mobile machine juices or purées any fruit or vegetable to create virtually unadulterated, high demand food or beverage products.
The Vaculiq, GEA’s patented no-oxygen solution, is for artisan juice makers who are currently pressing their fruit manually or with belt pressers. The Vaculiq is speedier and cleaner, plus the lack of an atmosphere means a fresher juice is produced overall, retaining that all-important flavour, yield, and quality, according to GEA.
Ideal for small to medium-sized beverage and food producers, the Vaculiq makes a final product that diverges minimally from the raw ingredients, retaining the colours, vitamins, and polyphenols from the original fruits and vegetables. The ground-breaking technology achieves this via its vacuum spiral filter.
The solid content and viscosity of the extracted juices or purées can be easily specified during the machine’s setup or before each run. Available in three standardised plug and play capacities (between 1,000 and 3,000 litres per hour), the machine is designed to be ready out of the box, and potentially offers an ROI in 18 months to two years after purchase.
GEA says it has seen the machine grow in popularity on the continent as the demand for artisanal juices has grown. As consumer behaviour changes and demand develops, large supermarkets are stocking more and more SME-manufactured products such as artisan juices.
Jason Hewitt, GEA business manager – beverage and dairy, explained: “The Vaculiq is a unique technology that is perfect for niche juice makers. It’s certainly proven its worth globally – yet UK beverage producers are really missing out. There is great technological and commercial potential in this machine, with a very impressive ROI, and it is something the UK beverages market will find of massive benefit.”
Tackling food waste is a vital component in GEA’s environmental pledges and the Vaculiq saves both valuable components from the raw ingredient. The primary product (the juice) and the secondary by-product (the pomance) are preserved. This is advantageous as it allows the by-product to be reused in another application.
