The Kaweka Food Company, of Hastings, was recently recognised at The New Zealand Food Awards annual ceremony in Auckland for its dedication to food safety and quality, according to infonews.co.nz.
It won the Assure Food Safety Award with its Lamb Shank with Red Wine/Rosemary sauce and also the New Zealand Food Safety Authority Section Award for โFood Operations Innovation.โ
The judges said: โWith a shelf life of two years this product was subject to numerous thermal validation trials to ensure product safety and integrity. The task was made more difficult because of the multiple components in the pack โ sauce, whole muscle meat and bone shank โ all with different thermal transfer rates. Kaweka Foods has managed the retort so the foods are not only shelf stable but look good and have great flavour and textureโ
General Manager, Scott Weir said: โThis award is further verification of the major effort Kaweka has made to produce shelf stable meals of the highest international standard. It follows the recent award by the Canadian Liver Foundation for our Moroccan Lamb with chickpeas, raisins and vegetables with Moroccan spices, as the best ethnic item at their nationwide food awards.โ
The success of Kaweka was accompanied by partner Green Monkey who contract all their product development and manufacturing for their range of organic baby foods to Kaweka. Green Monkey has an expanding range of markets in many countries. They won the Export Award following previous awards in Australia and New Zealand last year.
Kaweka has a wide range of shelf stable meals and meal solutions which have great convenience value for healthy instant home meals, as well as outdoor activities such as hunting, boating and tramping and specialist supply to the New Zealand military and Australian Fire Service. They are gluten free, have no E numbers and retain their full nutrient value through the efficiency of the sealed pouch system. โ Source: Infonews.co.nz