And now, intelligent cooking technology

If you’re a working mom, you can identify with this. You have to work overtime at the office and your cook has not returned from her vacation. When you get home, you know there’ll be the husband and kids waiting to be fed. What do you do? Pass by the supermarket and pickup ready-to-serve cooked food to bring home, of course. There’s always that ever-reliable rotisserie-roasted chicken that you can have chopped, wrapped and boxed to-go. All you need to do when you get home is pop it into your microwave oven, and then serve.

"It’s called HMR, or home meal replacement," says Steven K.S. Mun, international corporate chef for the Asia Pacific region of Henny Penny Corporation, the US-based company that specializes in commercial foodservice equipment.

"Henny Penny helps its customers to produce cooked food that is meant to be served later," Mun says.

Rotisseries are just one type from a full line of foodservice equipment from Henny Penny. It also supplies the industry’s leading pressure fryers that produce those perfectly fried chicken, with the crisp, golden texture and tender, juicy flavor that you get from your favorite fast-food outlet.

Henny Penny first introduced commercial pressure frying over 40 years ago.

"Today, almost every fast food chain is using a Henny Penny," says Michael Heng, international regional manager of the Asia Pacific region. "The advantages of pressure frying are clear. Controlled low pressure allows faster cooking at lower temperatures. This method not only saves energy but helps seal in the food’s moisture and natural juices for a healthier, better-tasting product."

When the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Henny Penny decided to enter the local market 10 years ago, it took some time for them to find a local distributor. "We have strict conditions," Heng explains. "The company should have an administrative department, of course, as well as an engineering department for the technical and after-sales service. Most importantly, it must have a demo and test kitchen. It is no longer enough to just sell equipment. The customer expects more. After-sales service is the norm, but more than that, Henny Penny offers training for its customers. It also assists them in developing new products."

HKR Equipment Corporation is the exclusive distributor of Henny Penny in the Philippines.

"Among our clients are some of the top names in the fast food business, such as Jollibee, KFC, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Chowking. Aside from fast foods and restaurants, HKR also supplies hotels, hospitals, ships, and supermarkets," says HKR general manager Edgar Rebaldo.

HKR’s test kitchen, at the ground floor of its office building on Kamagong St. in Makati, was a beehive of activity recently when Mun, who is based in Singapore, came to conduct his annual food service demonstration, assisted by HKR’s R & D specialist Ma. Teresa Bisuna. Using the Henny Penny combi-steamer, he demonstrated how several dishes can be cooked at the same time.

"The combi-steamer is no ordinary piece of cooking equipment. It can bake, roast, steam and regenerate," Heng explains. "Its unique built-in automated control system automatically monitors and maintains the precise combination of moist and dry heat to create the ideal cooking climate for practically any type of food."

"Henny Penny is well-known for such innovative, intelligent cooking technology," Rebaldo interjects. "It is also known as the Mercedes Benz of industrial kitchen equipment."

"Another important Henny Penny foodservice equipment is the blast chiller, which offers a highly efficient cook/chill system, that enables foodservice operators to cook and chill a wide range of products ahead of time, so that it’s ready to meet peak demand," Mun remarks. "Entire meals can be prepared days in advance, or cooked, chilled, re-thermalized and served on demand, all in the same day."

Henny Penny offers a full line of blast chillers that range in load size from 350 lbs. all the way down to 24 lbs.

"Each is carefully designed to chill hot food to safe temperatures quickly, conveniently and with optimum energy consumption," Heng explains. "Rapidly chilled food stores longer and tastes better when reheated. Colors, flavors and textures are better preserved since very little moisture is lost through evaporation."

"Cook in volume, serve on demand – that’s the balancing act large foodservice operators must cope with day in and day out," Heng observes. "What they need are reliable and efficient holding cabinets. Any holding cabinet can maintain cooked food quality for some period of time. But the right holding technology makes a big difference. The Henny Penny holding cabinet features automatic humidity control in one-percent increments from 10 to 90 percent relative humidity. The result is a nearly perfect holding environment for practically any type of food for exceptionally long periods of time. This translates to higher food quality and less waste."

Preparation time for cutting and marinating food for large banquets is often not enough unless it’s done way ahead of time. With Henny Penny’s blast freezers, this is possible. To help the medium to small-scale foodservice operators whose orders cannot be accommodated by large-scale seasoning manufacturers, Henny Penny also carries a complementary product line of seasonings such as hot and spicy or mild and tender for marinating chicken and other types of meat.

"So much has happened in terms of technology," Heng observes. "People travel more and they see all this new technology so that they now have higher expectations. Henny Penny helps its customers satisfy these needs."

Perhaps the most visible to consumers of Henny Penny’s food service equipment are the HMR merchandisers or display cases. You see them in supermarkets where ready-to-go cooked food are attractively displayed in long, glass-covered counters.

"Hot food display cases have come a long way in terms of looks and performance," Heng observes, "but it is also important to know where to put them in your store, where you are able to attract the highest volume of traffic. Even the rotisseries can be placed up front where customers can be easily attracted. People eat with their eyes, and the sight of load after load of tender, golden roasted chicken basting in their own juices as they turn slowly in spits can really be appetizing."

An innovation coming out of the HKR test kitchen is the use of the rotisserie oven for baking cakes. Using baskets instead of spits to hold the cake mix in long rectangular foil pans, Bisuna, HKR’s R & D specialist, was able to bake different kinds of cakes.

"This is her original idea," Heng remarks, "which we’re thinking of adopting in other countries."

Another idea which Bisuna, a Nutrition graduate from St. Scholastica’s College, is toying with is to use the Henny Penny open fryers, which are used for French fries or cut-up chicken, to produce crispy pata. This is the kind of new product ideas that the Henny Penny customers can appreciate.

"Every Henny Penny equipment purchase comes with a package, which includes not only after-sales service," Heng reiterates, "but also the benefits of training and product innovations from our test kitchen."