Find more capacity on your cook and freeze lines

For hash browns, potato patties, tots, and wedges, every extra second on the line adds up. Conservative cook and freeze settings can protect against changing conditions, but they can also limit throughput and use more energy than the process needs.

Thermal Intelligence by Eigen gives your team a continuous view of product surface temperatures. See variation across the belt, detect drift between routine checks, and use that information alongside validated probe measurements to make better decisions about line speed and process settings.

What Thermal Intelligence helps you optimize

Line speed based on actual product conditions

See how product surface temperatures change as belt speed, loading, and process conditions shift. Identify opportunities to increase throughput while keeping the process within your validated operating limits. After freezing, surface-temperature feedback can support conveyor-speed adjustments against defined temperature thresholds.

Illustrative thermal view: temperature trends help teams evaluate line speed within validated operating limits.

Cook and freeze time

Find where extra dwell time is adding heat or cooling beyond what your product requires. Use thermal trends and targeted checks to evaluate shorter cook and freeze times, reduce unnecessary energy use, and maintain consistent product quality. Changes are validated against your product specifications and quality procedures.

Smarter sampling between routine checks

Routine probes capture individual pieces at a moment in time. Continuous thermal monitoring helps QC see when and where conditions change. Highlight unusual surface-temperature patterns and direct operators to products that warrant a probe check, so sampling responds to what is happening on the line.

Illustrative thermal view: a cooler surface pattern directs QC to a targeted probe check.

Consistency across the belt

Track surface-temperature variation from one side of the conveyor to the other. Spot patterns that warrant investigation, such as uneven heating or cooling, changes in product loading, or drift after a changeover. Give operators a clearer view of the process while production is running.

Illustrative thermal view: variation across the belt helps operators investigate uneven heat distribution.

System ROI

Increased yield

Prevent unnecessary moisture loss from overprocessing to retain more saleable product weight. Optimize cook and freeze times to support faster line speeds within validated operating limits, increasing output from your existing equipment.

Reduced quality losses

Catch faulty batches within minutes of a detectable thermal deviation. Use inspection data to identify the affected production window and isolate the relevant product, helping contain scrap and rework before losses spread.

Reduced risk of recalls

Monitor surface-temperature patterns across 100% of product instead of relying on probes of only a fraction. Continuous coverage helps reveal deviations between routine checks so teams can investigate and contain affected product before it ships. Thermal monitoring complements validated probe checks and product-release procedures.

Integration

A thermal camera is positioned to view product as it leaves the relevant cooking or freezing stage. Eigen configures the inspection around your product, conveyor, and operating conditions. An edge device processes thermal images and makes results available to operators and connected plant systems.

For post-freezer applications, a rules-based setup can report average product surface temperature and communicate with the line through OPC UA. The appropriate thresholds, alerts, and control integration are defined for your process.

Surface temperature guides the next check. Thermal monitoring measures surface conditions. Core-temperature verification and product-release decisions remain governed by your validated quality procedures.

See where your potato line has room to improve

Talk to Eigen about your product, cook and freeze stages, current belt speed, and sampling routine. We’ll help identify where thermal monitoring can support throughput, shorter dwell times, and more targeted QC checks.

Discuss your line