In mid-September, GEA celebrated the opening of the new, state-of-the-art food processing and packaging Technology Center in Frisco, Texas. Located in the Dallas suburbs, the 15,000-square-foot facility features more than 40 pieces of GEA equipment used to manufacture food products.

Managed by highly qualified food technologists, the flexible facility offers customers from North and South America the opportunity to test individual machines up to a complete processing line and to train employees. Testing results can be carefully analyzed in the Center as well. Customers benefit by evaluating processes for yield, quality, and economic viability without disruption to their production and packaging lines.

The expanded center features recent innovations

GEA recently moved to this new location. “The move allowed us to expand and upgrade our offering to include recent innovations. We are confident that these improvements will provide additional value to current and future customers,” explains Ananta Islam, vice president, Food & Healthcare North America, GEA. “Since its inception in 2014, the goal of the North American location has been to provide partnership opportunities for both GEA and our customers. In addition to welcoming R&D teams, we offer this facility for customer staff training and technical seminars with industry experts.”

Complete lines available for testing

Nine complete processing lines are available in the Technology Center, including a homestyle/flour-coated line featuring the GEA MultiDrum and a full slicing line that contains the recently introduced GEA OptiSlicer 6000 and the GEA PowerPak PLUS thermoformed. The center also features GEA mainstays like the GEA CookStar oven with GEA SuperHeatSmoke, GEA MultiJector 2mm, and GEA SmartPacker TwinTube.

In addition to the Technology Center, the Frisco facility houses corporate offices, a spare parts warehouse, and an 8,000-square-foot tool shop that manufactures sets for GEA’s packaging and forming equipment.