As Hurricane Relief Needs Heat Up, HeaterMeals Responds with Self-heating Meals



Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Even before it became obvious that the 2005 hurricane season was going to be an especially disastrous one, Innotech Products, Ltd. in Cincinnati, Ohio considered what it could do to prepare for this year’s disaster relief needs. The company produces a unique product, HeaterMeals, The Self-Heating Meal. Six different lunch/dinner entrees and two breakfast meals are supplied to federal and state governmental emergency response agencies and private relief organizations for distribution to disaster victims and relief workers. HeaterMeals allow consumers to enjoy “a hot meal anytime, anyplace”™ so they are ideally suited to relief operations because they facilitate the logistics of feeding thousands of displaced people by eliminating the need for refrigeration or to set up kitchens. In preparation for the upcoming season, Stan Smith, Innotech’s Vice President of Operations, wanted to increase the company’s ready-to-ship inventory and to increase daily production capacity. He realized that idle equipment on hand could be combined to form most of a second production line. The one line that was currently operating was producing the smaller HeaterMeals entrée-only pack as well as a larger full-course HeaterMeals Plus pack that included an entrée, snack items like cookies, apple sauce, raisins, and breadsticks, along with a beverage. Both types of HeaterMeals included a cutlery/napkin/spice kit, the patented heater, and a water-activation packet. If a cartoner could be acquired for the second line, each line could be dedicated to producing one of the HeaterMeals types, and enormous efficiencies would result from eliminating time needed for switchover from one type to the other. Most importantly, Innotech would gain the output of the second line’s production. Smith turned to Frain Group, Inc. with which he had previously worked. “I knew that Frain had a large inventory of equipment which was available immediately,” said Smith. “And Frain offered a rental program with no fixed term which fit our needs exactly.” Innotech could use the rented cartoner for as long as it liked, then return it or exercise an option to buy it, applying a portion of the rental costs to the purchase price. Smith moved quickly to visit Frain. Working with Ric Wallace, a Frain project manager, he reviewed the cartoner choices and arranged for rental and shipping. He chose a Langen cartoner from the 300 cartoners on hand because it exactly matched the one currently being used at Innotech. It would require less time for set-up, and the learning curve for getting it to optimum production capability with maximum reliability would be virtually zero. The company’s foresighted preparation has literally been a life saver. The Langen cartoner arrived in mid-August and both lines have been running on two shifts, seven days a week ever since, producing about 45,000 meals a day. “I always want to be able to say ‘Yes’ to a customer, and it is especially fortunate that we have been able to say ‘Yes’ a lot more this year,” said Smith. About Innotech Products, Ltd. Innotech is a privately held company that manufactures the “Flameless Ration Heater” (FRH) for prepared-food assemblers who supply the U.S. Military with “Meals, Ready-To-Eat” (MREs). The company’s HeaterMeals, the self-heating meal, are marketed separately and enjoyed by hunters, fisherman, campers, long-haul truck drivers, and many military groups, as well as being provided to disaster relief agencies. www.heatermeals.com

Frain Group is the world’s preeminent provider of pre-owned processing and packaging equipment to markets such as the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Its one million square foot warehouse shelters 6500 pieces of pre-owned equipment and includes a 45,000 square foot engineering services facility. www.fraingroup.com ###

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