The work we did for Moulinex/KRUPPS was very frustrating because of the turmoil that was plaguing the company at the time. The domestic market of microwave ovens is saturated in Europe and in the USA. The market for professional microwave ovens is also saturated, but Moulinex assumed that the higher price it could obtain in that market and its technical advantage (see the article that follows) would give it a lucrative edge... It didn't work that way for many reasons... The company was bought out and, as far as we know, the new owners are, wisely we think, concentrating their efforts on markets they already know how to sell to. Jacques wrote the article that follows to explain a new and complex microwave handling technology (known as RIMM) which may resurface one day.

CHICAGO, Ill. -- Imagine this, a few years from now:

The bell rings in the hallway to mark the end of a seemingly interminable class in econometrics. Students want to make the most of their 30-minute   break, and stampede toward the closest court, recently renamed the "Bill Clinton Library Lunchroom."

When they arrive, the brightly-lit area is surrounded by vending machines offering a broad choice of foods. Several machines represent well-known brands like Stouffer's, Healthy Choice and Chef America. Other machines vend pizza, tamales, burritos, and hot dogs.

Machines stocked with products from McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken offer some of those chains' perennial favorites. A breakfast vending section serves warm donuts and French toast.

All of this pre-cooked food, preserved frozen at O"F., is packaged on recyclable microwave plates. A student inserts his debit card in the slot and selects a serving of French-bread pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni. The machine's display shows quickly how much credit he will have after deducting the cost of this meal. About 30 seconds later, the machine's door opens to reveal his chosen entree. The cheese is bubbly and the crust is pleasantly crisp to the bite.

Concurrently, about 25 miles from the campus, a computer operator at the headquarters of the vending company servicing these vending banks notices a blip on her monitor screen.

"Mmm," she thinks to herself. "At this sales rate, that machine will be out of French-bread pepperoni pizza by this evening. The computer agrees, and suggests that she replace one of the two rows of spinach lasagna with a faster-moving product. She types "OK" to signal that she wants the automated route manager to adjust the delivery accordingly.

This scene is not a vision of a far-away future. Actually, the technology exists today to perform all of the necessary tasks. Although such a frozen-food vending machine has not yet been built, there is little doubt that something very like it will be produced in the future.

These machines will be capable of performing the following tasks:

1. Storing frozen food at O° F, so that it can remain in an optimal state of preservation for several months. Several U.S. Companies already market such machines (such as E.C.C. in Orlando, Fla.).

2. Reading a debit card with an embedded microchip containing all the relevant credit information of the card's owner. Such cards are common in Europe and some Asian countries.

3. Identifying the food it is requested to reheat. The machine then can determine whether the package is that of a product it has been programmed to reconstitute and, if it is, can choose the optimal sequence of microwave and/or radiant heat (infrared) exposure to meet the food producer's specifications. This can be done with a simple but relatively expensive bar-code reader (MenuMaster markets a microwave oven with this feature).

A newer method is under development by S.T.H. Systems, a subsidiary of French-based Moulinex Group. It uses a simple, inexpensive miniature camera that can be programmed to recognize the graphics (like the brand logos and product name) of more than 200 different packages in less than a second.

In addition to its lower cost, this "opto-electronic" Image recognition system is far more difficult to fool than a bar-code reader. Bar codes can be copies; but, if one does not know what part of the package the image recognition system identifies, one can't copy it -- and the machine will not start. This gives total control of the machine to whomever has the programming code. If the programmer is a food company or distributor, the system restricts the machine to use with those brands and products exclusively.

4. Uniform and complete reheating of a frozen serving in 30 seconds. One can reheat frozen foods in 30 seconds today with a powerful enough microwave oven. But anyone who has reheated a leftover pizza, for example, knows that the crust comes out chewy, with cold spots in some places and over-cooked spots in others.

The new technology used in the "Whiz" microwaver, marketed by S.T.H. Systems, allows for fast, uniform reheating of frozen foods, and will restore crispness to the crust - all in about 30 seconds.

To understand how it works, here's a quick lesson on "heat" -- defined by physicists as the agitation of molecules, or small particles. Some food ingredients have more particles susceptible to agitation when subjected to microwave radiation. Thus, they become hotter faster than other ingredients around them (one reason why microwaved foods often exhibit hot and cold spots).

Chewy crust occurs because, with some doughs, the outer surface is less "agitable" than the inside. The microwaves thus go through the crust without heating it significantly. When they "find," inside the crust, some ingredient that will become hot readily, steam is given off which builds up and migrates toward the outside -- that is, toward the colder crust, where it condenses. The moisture accumulates there, resulting in chewiness.

To prevent this, S.T.H. Systems scientists have added very powerful infrared-generating halogen lamps inside the cavity of the oven, above and below the food. The moisture is vaporized as soon as it reaches the outer surface of the crust, and is quickly pulled out of the cavity by powerful fans. Et voilà! Crisp crust on a microwaved pizza.

This new microwave oven also eliminates the hot and cold spots that result from the uneven distribution of electromagnetic waves inside the oven cavity. Most microwave ovens attempt to "randomize" the energy distribution by use of "stirrers" or in-cavity turntables or both.

This doesn't always work. If one point in the cavity receives two waves (as a result of the random bouncing of the waves off the cavity walls), and if those waves are in opposite phases, there will be a cold spot as they cancel one another. If the waves are in synchronized phase, there will be a hot spot.

S.T.H. Systems took a radically different approach. Random wave bouncing is kept to a minimum. Instead, the unit directs the energy very precisely to the place where the food is located in the cavity. There, it creates a controlled "hot" spot by systematically assembling -- directly on the food -- two microwave beams arriving from opposite directions, with their phases synchronized. This greatly improves temperature distribution inside the food which, in most cases, is ready for
consumption as soon as it leaves the oven.

The '"Whiz" already is marketed in Europe and should be available in the United States this year, in its countertop version. Several major U.S. food manufacturers are preparing or adapting a full range of frozen foods and packaging to meet its specific requirements.

5. Vending machine inventory management by remote telephone Iink. Adding a modem to a vending machine, or to the opto-electronic image recognition system of the "Whiz," is not technically difficult nor expensive.

There is no doubt that all these technical advances will be brought together in the future. There is a consumer demand for high-quality food served fast. Vending operators believe it is crucial to find ways to minimize food spoilage and improve stock rotation and profitability of food vending.

To date, the combination "frozen food/microwave oven" has not been the answer. It doesn't deliver on the "short time" promise, and requires too much of a compromise on food quality. The concept is sound, but the technology did not exist.

That technology has now arrived. I'd bet that it will reach the lives of all food vending operators very soon . . well before a President Clinton library opens.

©1993 Jacques Chevron