Korimat – what is that?

Korimat in changing times

For more than 34 years Hartmut Rudolph works for the company KORIMAT and explains their autoclaves to butchers, food and spice producers and college students. In our interview he tells us how such a Korimat autoclave works und which products butchers must offer nowadays.

What is a Korimat needed for?

H. Rudolph: Filled and tightly closed tin cans and jars are heated once again to produce professional canned food. Creating meat and sausage products you need temperatures that are significantly higher than 100°C. For this purpose you use an autoclave like the Korimat. The Korimat is basically a very big pot whose lid is closed tightly and that produces fully-preserved products in about two to two and half hours. For this process the Korimat offers predefined programs and the option of manual treatment. Preserved food produced in the Korimat have a shelf life of four years at temperature of 26°C.

Is the Korimat difficult to use?

H. Rudolph: No, the Korimat is very easy to use. After three to four hours you understand the Korimat operating modes and you know what a butcher has to pay attention to.

For example?

H. Rudolph: First of all using the Korimat they have to pay attention to safety. Basically the Korimat is an overpressure or rather counter-pressure container with 120°C hot water. So it's important that all connections are tight and that all valves function. Not only the heating, but also the cooling down period are prerequisites for the success of the process. That's why all the members of the Korimat team are "persons that are competent to check pressurized containers". Every two years there is a technical inspection conducted by TÜV. The rest is quickly explained and understood. In every Korimat cycle you should use the same type and packaging, i.e. liver sausage jar after liver sausage and canned roulade after canned roulade.

Basically the Korimat functions like 60 years ago when it was introduced to the market, but what's different today?

H. Rudolph: It goes more and more in the direction of fully automatic control systems and different models, i.e. volumes from 120 to 380 liters (e.g. for 580 jars 230 ml TO82), normally with power and gas connection. But the requirements of Korimat clients are changing. Butchers offer nowadays signifcantly more products than in the past. We talk about the "cooking butcher" who uses the Korimat to conserve broths, meat stocks and ready-made meals.

In the end a glimpse into the future. Where is the journey heading?

H. Rudolph: Korimat extends its clientele to customer groups like bakers (ready-made meals) and producers of flavours, sauces and pet food. Moreover Korimat receives more and more requests from outside Germany. In the Korimat headquarters a new showroom has been set up where we specially offer training courses throughout the year. Furthermore we perform tests for the food conservation in stand-up pouches in the Korimat.

Thank you very much for the interview, Mr. Rudolph!