Increase yield, reduce costs, save energy, and improve your food and beverages' colour, flavour and aroma with Elea Pulsed Electric Field solutions.
Welcome to the new Elea website.
We're still refining it and welcome your feedback.
Welcome to the new Elea website. We're still refining it and welcome your feedback.
Elea PEF systems have a transformative effect on food processing, extracting greater value from raw materials, improving manufacturing efficiency, reducing costs and creating new, lucrative, product opportunities.
Elea Pulsed Electric Field systems utilize precise electrical pulses to create openings in the cell membranes (electroporation) of raw products. This clean, gentle, and focused method can enhance various products.
With close to 300 PEF systems installed, we are the world’s leading provider of PEF systems to the food, beverage, and scientific industries. Our PEF experts, in collaboration with a global network of regional agents and technology partners, provide PEF solutions tailored to our clients' specific needs.
Elea PEF Advantage Belt systems
Elea PEF Advantage Pipe systems
We build PEF solutions for all types of food & beverages
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![Close-up of a ripe red strawberry on a dark background.]()
Freeze drying
Dramatically enhance the quality of freeze-dried products and preserve more of the natural shape, flavour, aroma, and colour of fresh produce.
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![French fries in a metal bucket with salt being sprinkled.]()
French fries
Increased yield, reduced breakage, smoother cuts, longer fries, improved colour, lower oil absorption, and new product possibilities.
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![Three wine glasses with white, rosé, and red wine on a wooden barrel with bunches of grapes on the sides.]()
Wine
Improve your wine quality, accelerate fermentation, and optimise the extraction of essential compounds with Pulsed Electric Field Technology.
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![Close-up of stacked ridged potato chips on a dark surface.]()
Potato chips
PEF processing for potato chips improves efficiency, reduces costs, boosts yield, regulates colour, and enhances product quality.
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![Close-up of a translucent slice of a dried orange showing seeds and intricate details.]()
Air drying
PEF speeds up air drying, conserves energy, and better preserves the natural shape, flavour, aroma, and colour of fresh produce.
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![Close-up of dried sweet potato chips, reddish-orange in color, showing texture and thickness.]()
Veggie Chips
Enhance control over your vegetable chip production line with Elea PEF systems, optimizing processes like sugar release, slicing, washing, frying, and flavouring.
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![Green bean tied in a knot on a dark surface]()
Vegetables
Using PEF to process vegetables reduces blanching time by up to 50%, enhances cutting precision, minimizes breakage, and improves texture control.
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![Row of plastic bottles filled with orange juice on a production line.]()
Juices and Smoothies
Elea PEF Advantage systems offer a viable alternative to thermal and HPP processing, delivering reliable and continuous operation around the clock.
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![Bottles with amber liquid on a conveyor belt in a production facility.]()
Olive Oil
Optimize olive oil processing at lower temperatures, boost yield, and achieve more EVOO with Elea PEF Advantage systems.
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![Close-up of yeast powder in a glass dish.]()
Yeast
PEF revolutionizes yeast processing by boosting productivity, enhancing product quality, extending shelf life, lowering costs, and increasing yields.
The Elea PEF Advantage Belt, Pipe & Pilot systems
We offer a broad range of PEF systems suitable for many different applications and customisable to your specific requirements. All Elea PEF systems are designed and built by us to the highest standards at our facility in Germany.
Elea PEF Advantage Belt
Solid food products
Elea Pulsed Electric Field Advantage Belt systems offer the perfect solution for treating tubers, roots, vegetables, and fruits and are available in a variety of models.
Elea PEF Advantage Pipe
Liquid & semi-liquid food products
The Elea PEF Advantage Pipe facilitates microbial inactivation in liquids and can extract valuable compounds from fruit mashes.
Elea PEF Pilot
PEF research and development
The PEF Pilot Dual is suitable for both liquid and solid foods. Primarily designed for pilot-scale testing, its core unit can be customized with external plug-in modules.
Building PEF solutions since 2012
Transforming Food Production with PEF Innovation
We were the first to install an industrial PEF system, a milestone that marked a significant advancement in food technology. Since then, our PEF Advantage systems have become a standard feature in production lines for chips, French fries, vegetables, and drying processes. Building on this foundation, we are now expanding the applications of PEF technology to include liquid and semi-liquid products such as wine, olive oil, and biotech processes through our specialised extraction systems.
With over 12 years of experience and nearly 300 PEF systems installed worldwide, we have developed in-depth expertise in the field. Our team of more than 30 professionals—including process, electrical, mechanical engineers, food technologists, biotechnologists, and other specialists—works collaboratively to refine our PEF solutions tailored to each client's needs.
New systems, new applications, and enhanced PEF control
Innovating PEF and driving new PEF applications
We continue to advance PEF technology by developing new applications and refining existing solutions.
PEF technology benefits almost any raw food, and we are committed to creating solutions that make these advantages accessible to all. Our Elea PEF Advantage Pipe system has proven valuable for wine, olive oil, and fruit juice producers, helping them reduce costs, increase yields, improve product quality, and unlock new opportunities. We aim to extend these benefits to everyone who can benefit from this technology.
We are also focused on enhancing our Elea Belt systems offerings with new models and control technology. In 2025, we will launch our new PEF Advantage B Micro, specifically designed for smaller production lines. Additionally, we are introducing "Picon," an AI-driven PEF automation tool that uses sound to measure cutting resistance and automatically adjusts PEF treatment for optimal performance, reducing operating time and improving efficiency.
Customer care and support
Application support
Our experts can work with you to test the effectiveness of our PEF systems for your requirement, either in-house at our specially designed PEF pilot hall or on-site at your production line.
Technical care & support
We offer a full 24-hour support service worldwide. Our specialist installation and training teams work closely with our clients to ensure our systems' smooth, swift, and successful commissioning.
R&D for new PEF applications
PEF science and innovation
Our R&D team is currently involved in a wide range of PEF collaborative research projects, including stimulating algae for improved growth and extraction, optimising PEF drying for enhanced quality and form stability and making new meat-processing improvements.
Elea has built a valuable network of research partners from academic and industry backgrounds. These include research institutes such as the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL e.V.) and FEI, as well as universities such as the University of Applied Science of Osnabrück, University Vienna BOKU, CPUT in South Africa, and the Warsaw University Of Life Sciences in Poland.
The knowledge gained from this research is directly applied to develop new PEF opportunities for the food and beverage industries.
Sustainability and saving with PEF
Reduce waste, save energy, conserve water and produce less CO2
PEF technology is an energy-efficient, non-thermal process that significantly reduces energy and water consumption across various food processing applications. By leveraging renewable energy sources, PEF lowers energy use, cuts costs, and reduces CO₂ emissions, making it a more sustainable alternative to traditional methods.
In snack, chip, and fry production, PEF can replace thermal preheating, reduce or eliminate blanching, and speed up energy-intensive processes like frying, drying, and freezing. For instance, in French fry production, PEF eliminates the need for thermal preheating and uses just 10% of the energy and water typically required.
In the wine industry, PEF serves as an energy-efficient alternative to thermovinification. Its low-temperature processing preserves quality, producing high-grade juice or smoothie products with extended shelf life while significantly lowering energy costs.
How Pulsed Electric Field works
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Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) induces pore formation in the cell membranes of plant and animal products, a process known as electroporation. This increased membrane porosity significantly enhances mass transport within the product, offering numerous benefits for both products and processing.
PEF treatment has a beneficial impact on a wide range of plant and animal cells, including tubers, roots, and fruits.
Elea's PEF Advantage B systems improve cutting efficiency, result in smoother, less feathered surfaces, enhance texture and crispiness, boost quality, reduce oil absorption during frying, save energy, and enable the creation of innovative product shapes, among other advantages.
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Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) effectively inactivates bacteria in liquid foods at low temperatures, offering an ideal alternative to traditional processing methods like pasteurization or HPP. When the PEF field strength exceeds the transmembrane potential, pores form in bacterial cell membranes, causing them to open, which kills the bacteria and extends the product's shelf life.
As a low-temperature process, PEF helps preserve valuable compounds in the liquid, positively impacting the overall quality by retaining more natural nutrients such as vitamins, antioxidants, and pigments. This results in a healthier, fresher, and more appealing final product.
The increased pore structure in plant cells enhances extraction efficiency, allowing more valuable compounds to be extracted without the need for additional enzymes.
Elea's PEF Advantage Pipe systems operate at low temperatures, require minimal maintenance, and are designed for 24-hour continuous operation, making them an optimal solution for juice processing.
Some of our clients and partners
Many of our clients require strict confidentiality about their PEF solution so a special thanks to those who have let us use their logo.
Prof.-von-Klitzing-Str. 9, D-49610 Quakenbrück, Germany
Hours
Monday–Friday
8.00 - 17.00
Phone
+49 (0) 5431 92629 70