First orders for microwave pioneer

ADVANCED Microwave Technologies (AMT), a Falkirk-based engineering company, has won its first two orders for a new device following a demonstration project at Queen Margaret University in Musselburgh.

AMT has created machines to pasteurise fruit juice while still retaining the original colour and nutrients, such as anti-oxidants and vitamins.

The company - which was founded in 2008 by managing director Douglas Armstrong and technical director Yuriy Zadyraka, who has close links with the General Physics Institute in Moscow - has also demonstrated the equipment's use in cooking meats such as black pudding and haggis.

Armstrong said: "Current methods for cooking large quantities of meat cost about 50,000 or 60,000 per tonne but our method costs only one-fifth of that."

He added that AMT is now working on a UHT-style milk "that still tastes like milk".

AMT's microwave technique was developed for the disposal of waste blood from abattoirs, but the firm has been working to expand its uses with Interface, the public body that helps private companies access expertise in Scotland's universities.