CAL-SAN has completed the purchase of this technology, and has entered into a licencing and royalty agreement with EnWave.

The terms of this agreement include a license providing EnWave with a royalty of up to 10% of CAL-SAN’s gross revenues from the sale of dried food products processed using the technology.

EnWave expects that future sales of this equipment will range in price between $800,000 and $1 million.

The new food dehydration nutraREV technology by EnWave will compete directly with freeze drying, as it is designed to require about one-third of the energy of freeze drying with one-sixth the capital cost.

The technology dries food in minutes or hours rather than days.

Based on the company’s pre-commercial test results with a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and herbs, the dried products retain excellent colour, flavour and texture, with similar nutrients and shelf-life to freeze drying, and at a variety of moisture contents as required by the target market.

The company selected blueberries as the first market for commercial-scale nutraREV technology because of the volume of the fresh and frozen product available locally.

It is also capable of producing shelf-stable, ‘puffed’ blueberries, which is a major improvement compared to conventional freeze-dried blueberries which typically collapse into a raisin-like appearance.