The
Principals behind this project have between them long experience and expertise as
business owners in both food production and sales, and industrial design. They have posited
that there is a large, untapped demand for ready-cooked, deliciously served corn cobs. Using
their combined skillsets they aim to design and produce a specialist machine that can par-boil
and roast corn cobs significantly quicker and more energy-efficiently than any current method,
at the same reducing carbon emissions in the whole process by 75%. The idea of using an
integrated process which par-boils and then roasts the corn cobs is entirely innovative and will
ensure a consistently well-produced final product. No such machine currently exists.
The idea anticipates that a range of restaurants, particularly Quick Service Restaurants, will be
interested in using such machines for the dual reasons of the operating efficiency and the
opportunity to exploit sales of a healthy, internationally marketable, food product. Quick
Service Restaurants include household self-service restaurant names such as McDonalds,
Burger King and KFC, and in addition to these, the idea will appeal to the casual dining
market of operators such as Nando’s, where table service is included. The added
environmental bonus is that corn can expand significantly in sales as a primary foodstuff for
humans without the environmentally negative alternative of first feeding it to animals to
produce meat, at higher cost and with the environmentally destructive by-products of
greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide