Ashgrove | Shelf Stable Cheese Snacks

Before EnWave, Ashgrove was looking for opportunities to elevate their product offering.

Ashgrove is a Tasmanian, family-owned dairy business. Their challenge has always been staying relevant in a highly competitive global dairy market. Their team was looking for ways to innovate their product offering, especially with cheese. In doing so, Ashgrove continuously invests in state-of-the-art technology to lower production costs while increasing output. Over the last couple of years, they saw the trends shifting towards natural snacking as the primary consumer trend. Monitoring these trends allowed them to stay on top of innovative technologies, which is how they came across EnWave.

Ashgrove’s team quickly realized that working with EnWave would take their cheese snacks to the next level. Innovation and shelf stability were crucial considerations during their product development search. They also wanted to ensure that the products were natural and had scalability potential. Transformational innovation and technology enable Ashgrove to use EnWave’s REV drying process to access new market channels. Ashgrove stated that they “were looking at conventional Freeze Dryers but that technology uses so much water. We sought out alternative technology and came across EnWave’s REV technology!”

Ashgrove jumped at REV’s capabilities to create something new.

The fast processing speeds made the REV drying technology really attractive, in conjunction with minimal use of water in the drying process. They also liked that the technology is proven but is still unique in the Australian market. AmazeBalls is the first Australian-made dehydrated cheese snack. It is crafted from the Ashgrove milk supply and was a way for our consumers to get the protein and nutrients they need in an easy-to-eat dairy format. They also loved that it retains all of the natural cheese flavours and is classified as a clean label snack.

Constant support through the development process

When asked about the R&D phase, Ashgrove says that “the whole experience working with the EnWave team was positive. The entire technical team was very knowledgeable and supportive.”