Can the South West support its own shared-access HPP facility? On 5 November we're bringing together the companies that would use it, build it, finance it and supply it, to test that question in public.
One day at Eden Project. Bring a product or a question. Leave knowing whether HPP is worth pursuing for it.
Six pressures sit behind every HPP conversation we have with a producer. Most sites only fix one or two of them.
Lost sales, higher waste, and distribution radius capped by how many days a product can safely stay on a shelf.
Pathogen control gets harder as products move toward less processing, not more. Listeria and other risks do not wait for a recall.
Reaching premium markets further away means the product has to survive time and temperature it was never designed for.
A single HPP machine can run into seven figures. That price alone rules HPP out for most producers who would otherwise use it.
Retailers want longer availability windows, cleaner labels, and less waste going back the other way, without extra cost.
New formats, cold-pressed and minimally processed products need infrastructure that most of the UK does not have access to yet.
Pure Food Tech is not asking producers to bet on a facility that does not exist yet. The approach runs the other way: build the case with real, named demand before a single machine gets ordered.
There is no long trading history to point to here, and no seven-figure facility built yet. What stands behind this instead is Andrew Williams's 25 years in the food and hospitality industry, including two decades of supplier relationships built at New Covent Garden Market, and a growing set of direct conversations with the manufacturers and operators who already run HPP tolling elsewhere.
Bring the right people into one room on 5 November.
Work through formulation, packaging and shelf life with real product.
Size a shared facility around confirmed, named demand.
Four categories, chosen because there is a real, specific case in each, not because the list needed to be longer.
Pathogen control and shell-to-meat extraction for shellfish, plus export shelf life for premium product.
More →Microbiological safety for raw pet food without cooking out the nutrition the category is sold on.
More →Longer chilled shelf life on retail-ready product, without heat or added preservatives.
More →Cold-pressed juices and similar drinks pasteurised without the heat that degrades what they are sold on.
More →HPP holds food at extreme hydrostatic pressure, cold water rather than heat, to deactivate the pathogens and spoilage organisms that would otherwise limit shelf life. Nothing is added to the product to achieve it.
Typical operating pressure, around six thousand times atmospheric pressure.
Typical shelf life extension over conventional chilled processing, product dependent.
Shared-access tolling means producers pay for capacity used, not for a machine they own outright.
“Fresh food does not have to be made less fresh to be made safe.”
Joyce Longfield, Cold Pressure Council · opening keynote, 5 November
Also speaking: Dr Errol Raghubeer, JBT Marel's global HPP science lead, whose work helped validate HPP with the FDA, USDA and Health Canada. See the full agenda →
Anyone weighing up shelf life, food safety or export reach against the cost of getting there alone.
Buyers and technical leads who set the shelf life, labelling and waste targets HPP can help meet.
Equipment manufacturers, finance and packaging specialists building the supply side of a UK HPP facility.
