EnWave Corporation (TSX-V:ENW | FSE:E4U) has confirmed that its state-of-the-art vacuum-microwave toll drying facility, REVworx, is officially open for business. REVworx offers on-demand contract manufacturing services for the production of high-quality, vacuum-microwave dried snack and ingredient applications for food companies of all sizes.
EnWave has carved out a niche for itself in vacuum microwave dehydration technology on an industrial scale and now serves customers around the world. Up until recently, clients in sectors like food and cannabis have accessed the technology by buying or leasing EnWave’s REV machines. The company now has over 45 royalty-generating partners in 20 countries.
Why is REVworx a game changer?
REVworx is the first large-scale vacuum-microwave toll processing facility in North America that is exclusively offering drying services for third-parties. REVworx offers flexible production capabilities, filling the growing demand for innovative consumer products made using EnWave’s proprietary technology.
REVworx will allow companies to bring innovative vacuum-microwave dried products to market and will reduce risk by lowering the upfront capital investment, increasing speed to market, and allowing companies to launch their products and prove out the value proposition of using REV technology.
Located at EnWave’s head office in Vancouver, Canada, the REVworx facility incorporates complimentary upstream and downstream equipment required to process food applications at scale. REV technology yields products that retain superior flavour and nutrition, have unique textures and elongated shelf lives. REVworx is equipped with a 60kW tray-based REV machine, a 10kW REV unit for smaller batch production, a commercial scale air dryer for pre-processing, preparation equipment such as cutters, corers and slicers for fruits and vegetables, a fryer and seasoning station, and a bulk packaging area for shipment preparation.
The facility has been designed to meet the highest level of quality standards, and EnWave is pursuing Safe Quality Food certification, confirming its commitment to a culture of food safety and operational excellence in food safety management. Certification 84 SQF requires three consecutive months of line trial production, which will be completed March to May 2022, with full SQF certification expected for June 2022.
Reducing food waste
The opening of the REVworx facility will open opportunities for both global and local food manufacturers to not only create new food ingredients and snacks for commercialisation, but also enable growers to salvage and process imperfect produce and reduce overall food waste.
Lower grade produce can now easily be processed and purposed into consumable food products, such as powders, fragments, and pieces for sale with the support of EnWave’s R&D team of dehydration experts.
EnWave’s REV technology is in demand from companies that value the speed and quality of the dehydration process the company offers. We are not currently aware of any firm offering similar tech that can deliver this on an industrial scale. While the company’s two main customer segments are cannabis and dried food, especially dried snacks, it is also working on a third silo in the pharmaceutical space which also looks very interesting.
Just taking cannabis as an example, cannabis producers can dry four to six times faster, retain 20% more terpenes and 25% more cannabinoids.
