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Jonathan from Washington DC has a great question:
I notice for most NBA games the visiting team selects to shoot at its own basket in the first half compared to high school or college when teams don't shoot at their own basket until the second half. What is the competitive advantage gained by a team shooting at its own basket in the first half compared to waiting until the second half?
Whether a team would rather have their offense or defense in front of their bench in the second half of a game depends on how the coaches feel they can best help out their players from the sidelines.
In a close game some coaches prefer to have their offense in front of them in the last half so they can call out plays and give directives during the crucial final minutes.
When I was coaching I usually liked to have the other team's offense and our defense in front of our bench at the end of a game. Once we heard the opposing team's guard call a play we let our guys know what was coming so they could break it up and stop them from scoring.


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Vodafone and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have teamed up to provide mobile health services for improving treatment of cardiovascular conditions.
The two companies will create mobile and Internet-based services to support patients, including helping them stick with treatment plans. The services will be designed to work across geographies, with the ability to adapt to local variations in regulations, Vodafone and AstraZeneca said Tuesday.
The project will be led by AstraZeneca, with Vodafone providing the technology and infrastructure for the services, as well as "the ability to capture data from a variety of sources," Vodafone said.
The companies did not elaborate on the particulars of what they will develop or the timing. Potential applications include pacemakers that can connect to the Internet or another network and heart-rate monitors, according to Matt Hatton, director at Machina Research.
At the same time, vendors such as Samsung and Apple are showing a growing interest in health care. For example, Samsung's Galaxy S5, which will go on sale in April, has an integrated pulse meter and Apple's reported Healthbook app is rumored to include features related to monitoring blood sugar, blood pressure and nutrition.
Health care is one of the most complicated machine-to-machine sectors when used for clinical treatments, but also one with great potential for societal impact.
"Health care budgets in the developed world tend to be going up, but there is a big challenge with an aging population and how to cope with that. The way to handle that is with these connected solutions," Hatton said.
At the same time there are a lot of hoops to jump trough related to compliance issues, but that's out of necessity, according to Hatton.
Much of the potential savings are related to more proactive treatments of diseases, such as diabetes, preventing episodes that cost a lot of money to treat and at the same time improving the quality of life for patients, Hatton said.
By using mobile services, health care systems in the EU could lower annual spending by €99 billion ($138 billion) by 2017, after the costs are subtracted for additional workers needed to maintain mobile health systems, according to a report published by industry organization GSM Association last year.

subset: commoncrawl


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Creator: Colaboratory
Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary)
Played on: iPad
Price: $1.99
There are people who are good at Tetris and there are people who are good at Boggle. Those who are in the middle of that Venn diagram can count themselves lucky when playing Puzzlejuice, which tests—nay, taxes—players' spatial dexterity à la Tetris and their jumble-y discovery abilities à la Boggle at the same time. The game starts off like Tetris. Various shapes fall, and you fit them into one another. The shapes are also color-coded, though, and lining up three blocks of the same color transforms them into letters. Or, if you complete a Tetris-style line, that line becomes letters, too. Then you must find hidden words to further clear the board as the Tetris pieces continue to fall, faster and faster. It's the mental equivalent of rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. And if that isn't enough, Puzzlejuice introduces challenges, like completing three lines at once or finding a six-letter word, that you must complete to move on. Puzzlejuice asks a lot, but it also gives a lot back: Each achievement feels like it was earned, and like a cause for celebration. At least until more blocks start falling… A
Cuboy: Back To The Cubeture—Era 2
Creator: Edible Castle
Platform: Browser
Price: Free
Show-business people who know Don Rickles always say that the insult comic is the nicest guy in the world, and the people who wrote this point-and-click adventure game are probably swell folks, too. You just wouldn't know it from the smart-ass attitude of Cuboy, their hilarious, hexahedral hero. For this long-awaited sequel, Cuboy journeys back to the Classical era ("Cubathens," to be specific) in his quest to recover a cardboard time machine from an unpleasant cat. As the creators openly admit, Cubeture 2 isn't terribly hard, but the game's merely average craftiness is secondary to its wit. One of the highlights amid the consistently amusing voice performances is Cerberus, the three-headed dog with Broadway dreams. A selection of bizarre mini-games break up the puzzle-solving action, so while Cubeture 2 has occasional moments of tedium, it also has its moments of frantic armpit-hair ingestion… A-
Creators: Terry Cavanagh, Hayden Scott-Baron
Platform: Browser
Price: Free
The instructions for ChatChat read, in full, "Be a cat." In this meowing, purring, multiplayer experience (read: glorified chat room with cat avatars), it might seem impossible to do otherwise. Not so. Execute the right combination of moves, and you can in fact be a dog—ChatChat's version of "moral choice." Players can catch mice and deposit them at a human's front door, which technically qualifies as a "fetch quest." If you want a different color of cat, just hit reload—customizable characters! So is ChatChat a canny commentary on gaming tropes, a reductio ad absurdum of genre staples that exposes a hollowness within the modern MMO experience? Could be. Then again, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a dumb videogame where you pretend to be a cat is just a cigar… B
The Cat That Got The Milk
Creator: Ollie Clark, Jon Mann, Helana Santos, Chris Randle
Platforms: PC, Mac
Played on: PC
Price: Free
Videogames have always been about abstractions. This used to be a technical limitation, back when a handful of Atari 2600 pixels were supposed to represent mesmerizing, otherworldly aliens, but as games began to resemble reality, it became increasingly rare for a title to willingly channel the obscure. The Cat That Got The Milk eschews this trend by portraying a cat's night out as a line zipping at right angles through suprematist art. The journey ends at a circle, signifying a bowl of milk. The "cat" automatically moves horizontally to the right, so the player's only agency is to guide it straight up or down, as if using the right knob of an Etch-A-Sketch. An increasing cacophony of colorful geometric shapes evoking Wassily Kandinsky paintings form around the feline, and single-screen challenges dynamically shift into new stages until the game resembles the best opening-credits sequence to a Hitchcock thriller never made. An instant restart alleviates frustration, and those who just want to see the game through to the end will appreciate the option to skip a level after 20 failed attempts. Not offering this option after the player loses nine lives seems like a missed opportunity, but The Cat That Got The Milk's sophisticated visual palette seems above such cutesy humor… B
Sakura Samurai: Art Of The Sword
Creator: Grounding Inc.
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Price: $6.99
A princess has been kidnapped, and it's up to you, a still-wet-behind-the-ears samurai, to save her. The game requires you to clomp about in your wooden shoes between a series of showdowns against encroaching hordes. Eschewing the visceral, slice-and dice kineticism typically found in samurai simulations, Art Of The Sword employs a slower, more cerebral pacing. Players must note an enemy's stance and the position of his sword to prepare their attack. Dodging incoming strikes at the last possible moment not only earns a coveted "precision point," which can be traded for gold at the "Frogs Plus" store in town, it also leaves the enemy open for a devastating counter. These always-tense battles grow in scope over the course of the game, with exponentially more enemies to juggle—it can feel like a vaudevillian plate-spinning routine. The game also demands—and rewards—absolute perfection. The demanding play, when coupled with a look and feel reminiscent of The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker, makes Art Of The Sword into an upbeat, watered-down version of Dark Souls…B+
Paper Monsters
Creators: Crescent Moon Games
Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary)
Played on: iPhone
Price: $0.99
This saccharine platformer, which stars a tiny, cute-faced robot fashioned out of cardboard boxes, wants with all its humble heart to be a cousin on the LittleBigPlanet family tree. Really, a more appropriate title for this game would have been We Rented LittleBigPlanet For Several Hours And Really Love It. Aside from being derivative, and more than a little dull, there's nothing wrong with Paper Monsters. The touchscreen controls, which can be sloppy on iOS devices for side-scrolling experiences like this one, actually provide an above-average amount of control. Instead of collecting stickers à la LittleBigPlanet, Paper Monsters asks you to collect stray buttons and paperclips. The game become more interesting whenever warp pipes, which typically whisk players down to subterranean levels, instead whisk you deeper into the game screen itself. Unfortunately, the effect of hauling players into the backgrounds of 2D worlds would have felt more original if the recently released Mutant Mudds hadn't already done this—and done it better—on the 3DS. Some levels, like a submarine digression, do show evidence of elbow-grease and imagination. In these moments, Paper Monsters briefly has a pulse… C-
Rokko Chan
Creator: King Soukutu
Platform: Browser
Price: Free
Somewhere close by is an alternate reality where Hot Pockets are little pretzels with dehydrated cheese in them, and Combos are microwavable pastries filled with ham and cheese. Superman witnessed his parents get gunned down in front of him, and Batman was the last son of a dying world. That world also got Rokko Chan instead of Mega Man. King Soukutu's game mimics the Blue Bomber's 1980s adventures so precisely that it feels less like homage to the hero known in Japan as Rokku Man and more like a transplant from some other Earth. As in Keiji Inafune's classics, a kindly scientist makes a fighting robot to fight the evil robots made by a mad scientist living in a giant skull-shaped castle. Rokko herself fights robot beasts in a variety of elemental-themed locales before going on to fight the evil doctor. Many components of the game, including backgrounds and fonts, are directly lifted from classic Mega Man games, but Rokko Chan is elevated by its cunning, challenging level design. Fair warning: Don't play with a keyboard… B+
The Fourth Wall
Creator: DigiPen Institute Of Technology (Team Pig Trigger)
Platform: PC
Price: Free
The seed of Portal was sown by a DigiPen student project called Narbacular Drop. Now a new class has emerged from the famed institute to bring us another novel take on teleportation. The Fourth Wall's central conceit delves back to gaming's infantile era, where it was a given that if you moved too far to the left in Asteroids, you'd come out on the right side of the screen. This ouroboros-like design forms the crux of The Fourth Wall. What initially looks like a simplistic grayscale platformer is transformed by the ability to lock the scenery in place, causing any open exits to wrap around to their opposite end. Need to get past a pit of lava? Jump up so the hazard is offscreen, then freeze the environment in midair. Now, if you leap into the pit where the lava should be, you fall from the sky, allowing safe passage to the other side. It takes time to grow accustomed to this awkward approach, but eventually, isolating scenery becomes second nature… A-
Mutant Mudds
Creator: Renegade Kid
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Price: $8.99
Certain questions come to mind while playing Mutant Mudds. Why does this kid have a jetpack? Why does he have a gun that seemingly shoots eggs? Why does his grandmother live in the middle of 16 abstract levels that are covered with lava and ice? If a giant meteor of sentient mud landed on earth and started causing trouble, how will collecting little diamonds help? Renegade Kid's game is not forthcoming with answers, but it makes up for its incoherent sense of place with a series of excellent precision-platformer challenges. In each stage, there are 100 diamonds to collect, and an additional secret stage within that is even harder. Take three hits from red-eyed baddies, and you have to restart the level. Mudds can be taxing, but it's rarely unfair. It's always clear what you must do to proceed, even if many of the levels have you bouncing between background, foreground, and right up against the screen… B+
Call Of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land
Creator: Red Wasp
Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary)
Played on: iPad
Price: $4.99
Here's the challenge of making games based on H.P. Lovecraft's work: There is no easy way to impart madness on a player. The horror and allure of Lovecraft's stories—particularly those about Cthulhu and other star-born old gods coming to cover the Earth in ruin—is that his characters confront things that shatter their minds. It's hard to foster unknowable delirium and brain-crushing dread while also asking player to, say, swap health packs with a party member. That doesn't make Call Of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land a lesser game. Red Wasp's role-playing game is a fine exercise in strategic decision-making and moodiness. The dark battlefields evoke some of the gloom that characterizes Lovecraft's work, as does the campy dialogue exchanged between British soldiers and occultists as they describe your objectives. Even as you move from fighting soldiers to slaying monsters, though, the game's overall sterility keeps it from fully reflecting its inspiration. After a while, you're just watching numbers get bigger as you take turns flinging pain across the battlefield. The only madness here comes when you run out of resources well into a fight and have to restart from the beginning… B-
Burrito Bison Revenge
Creator: Juicy Beast
Platforms: Browser
Price: Free
Burrito Bison Revenge is a sequel, but if you haven't played the first one, it might be better to go ahead and fire this one up blind. Watching a giant, buffalo-masked wrestler crush parallel-universe gummi bears—apparently they stole his wallet—is a lot more fun without any context. To recover his billfold, the buffalo has to fling himself from a wrestling ring, down a road covered with destroyed rocket ships and candy smears. He gains distance and speed by bouncing off fleeing gummies. Like other browser games in the fling-something-from-a-massive-slingshot vein, you're given cash to purchase upgrades. Oil keeps your speed up, for instance, and a spring means extra height when landing on a gummy bear's dome. Like gummi bears themselves, Burrito Bison Revenge is addictive, but the calories are empty… B-
Chuck The Sheep
Creators: John Cooney, James Pearmain
Platform: Browser
Price: Free
One wouldn't expect a game where a lamb pilots a homemade aircraft to be heavy on strategy, but Chuck The Sheep is richer than it seems. At first, the game looks straightforward—you control Chuck as he launches himself to freedom, dodging mines and wayward birds—but plane upgrades and achievements change the dynamic entirely. Upgrades are fashioned out of collectible materials like water, oil, and iron. Chuck can get water by catching floating droplets, but to gather wood or oil, he has to crash his plane into trees and silos on the ground. Crashing damages the ship, so the trick is figuring out where and when to gather certain materials—likewise for pursuing achievements, some of which directly contradict others. Chuck The Sheep is most rewarding when players have to think two or three steps ahead instead of blindly piloting the title character through hazardous terrain… A-
Creators: Vasily Mironov, Nikolay Polovinko
Platform: Browser
Price: Free
As proof that smart games can be simple, Infinitix only needs the space bar to work its magic. Players control a spaceship as it makes its way through claustrophobic corridors, picking up fuel to keep going. Running out of fuel means the craft will blow up, and if the ship isn't oriented in the right direction, it will collide with the walls around it and crash. Hitting the spacebar rotates the ship 90 degrees, letting you snap up fuel or dodge walls, and timing it right takes attention and luck. The ship's increasing speed and the ever-smaller margin for error keep the tension high… B+
Frederic: The Resurrection Of Music
Creator: Forever Entertainment
Platforms: iPhone, iPad
Played on: iPhone
Price: iPhone—$1.99; iPad ("HD" version)—$3.99
Frederic: The Resurrection Of Music is essentially a cartoon with some interactive segments—Dance Dance Revolution for lovers of Disney's Fantasia. Classical composer Frederic Chopin is raised from the dead and must figure out who's behind his resurrection. Each level is a one-on-one battle against a musical adversary who plays Chopin's work in a distinct style (the first level is techno, the second is reggae, etc.). Players need to hit piano keys at the right time to keep the song going. Frederic attempts to make up for its rote play with an off-the-wall story and incredible production values, but the extras end up taking over. For every five minutes of play, at least that much is spent on cut scenes. C+


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Create Space for Design, Development and Community
Park Assist Asia manufactures high-speed automated parking structures from hundreds to thousands of cars in half the space of a conventional parking garage. Architects and developers use less space for parking and create space for design, development and community enhancements.
- Create more saleable space by using Robotic Parking Systems
- Space gained can be used for green space and open areas to meet LEED standards
- Delivers faster retrieval times than other automated garages or ramp-style parking
- Automated parking offers security for both individual and car
- A Robotic Parking System gives users premium valet service without the valet
- Automatic parking reduces CO2 emissions and other pollutants and greenhouse gases
- Flexible design allows the automated parking garage to fit into any neighborhood or project
- Robotic Parking Systems relieve traffic congestion


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I will accept thy will to do and be,
Thy hatred and intolerance of sin,
Thy will at least to love, that burns within
And thirsteth after Me:
So will I render fruitful, blessing still,
The germs and small beginnings in thy heart,
Because thy will cleaves to the better part.
Alas, I cannot will.
Dost not thou will, poor soul? Yet I receive
The inner unseen longings of the soul,
I guide them turning towards Me; I control
And charm hearts till they grieve:
If thou desire, it yet shall come to pass,
Though thou but wish indeed to choose My love;
For I have power in earth and heaven above.
I cannot wish, alas!
What, neither choose nor wish to choose? and yet
I still must strive to win thee and constrain:
For thee I hung upon the cross in pain,
How then can I forget?
If thou as yet dost neither love, nor hate,
Nor choose, nor wish,resign thyself, be still
Till I infuse love, hatred, longing, will.
I do not deprecate.


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MALAYSIA – A tour company is booking trips to Heaven. It's a trip of a lifetime – you don't want to miss it!
Most people can only imagine what heaven looks like but now tourists can gain entry to the ultimate destination of happiness in a celestial "Heaven Tour" organized b Kek Eng Seng.
Tourists, all dressed in white, go on a six-hour tour that includes all the highlights – the Gates of St. Peter, wing ceremonies for angels, clouds, bells, and a brief glimpse of the main attraction – God.
It starts with a blessing ceremony at 6pm and then the tourists "take off" for heaven.
Tourists are blindfolded with only yellow cloth as their tickets on the journey to heaven. Participants have to observe a strict vegetarian diet for forty days prior to the tour.
Wong Mun Cheong, 65, from Kuala Lumpur, who took Master Kek's "Tour of Hell" in August, signed up for the celestial tour out of curiosity.
"Minutes into the trip, I bumped into a funny-looking fat man with a beard and within moments, a blue stork flew by and carried me to a different dimension.
"As I entered that dimension, I saw a golden green seven-foot tall God, which looked a lot like King Kong. In the blink of an eye, the blue stork brought me to another realm and I saw a beautiful woman sitting by a beautiful cascading waterfall. I made love to her for ninety hours."
Yes, there are accommodations in heaven. As the tour guide, Dr. Susan Beglapah told WWN. "The tour is only six hours in human times, but it's two weeks in 'heaven time.'" Tourist will get their own cloud to relax and "reflect" on during their stay. And there is a chance to sit by the sky and relax. You can even take a dip in the sky if you want.
Each tourist will be taken into the "big room" to have a brief moment with the Creator. Wong Chi Wang went into the room and described it this way, "All of a sudden, I heard a familiar voice from behind saying 'my son, you have returned, I am so glad you're here. Go back to earth and do good things."
Wang also said he bumped into his mother in heaven. Each tourist will have one day (heaven time) to visit with relatives (but you are only allowed to go back two generations).
Some tourists are shocked to see certain relatives in heaven. "I can not believe my Uncle Banjee was in heaven. For sure, I thought he would be burning in hell," said Jyoti Aggarwali.
Other tourists said that their health issues were "healed" when they went on their tour of heaven. And others had trouble articulating what they saw and felt. "It blew my mind in a way that blew every thing in it and then mashed it up and turned it into a big rainbow of love," said Jill Walton of Sante Fe, NM who went on the tour.
Perillo Tours of Teaneck New Jersey is partnering with "Heaven Tour" to sell the package to American tourists.


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This past Saturday Heartless Bastards, and Austin's Frank Smith (the band, not a man), brought their amazing live performance back to Headliners. For an earlier start time there was actually a pretty decent turnout as Frank Smith provided a phenomenal performance warming up the crowd.
What was even more astounding was that Heartless Bastards' front woman, Erika Wennerstrom, took in the entire opening set in amongst the crowd herself. I had a brief chance to speak with her, vying for a coveted post show interview, but she was keener to see Frank Smith's set and humbling and polite she agreed to try and chat later. It was remarkable to me to actually see another musician relish in that of her tour mates' set really, as that was a fairly new phenomenon. Personally, it further exemplifies Wennerstrom's passion for her craft and sincere appreciation of other's music.
Once Heartless Bastards took the stage, Headliners had a more respectable turnout and they band delivered an always reveled performance. Playing a couple new tracks, amongst those from The Mountain and Arrow, it really turned out amazingly and Wennerstrom's sultry vocals proved once again to be a stellar compliment to the perfectly arranged instrumentals. I may be personally biased here, but Heartless Bastards are just a really solid rock and roll band hands down.
I had hoped to speak to her afterwards as mentioned, but given that she had many friends in the audience I kindly abstained from over stalking and dampening any positive times for her by my own journalistic prowess. Once again, she and the rest of the band proved to be down to earth rockers and it was a great night for everyone. I hope you get to catch them both somewhere down the road as it is really worth it.
Photo Credit: This Guy (penalty for thievery is listening to a compilation of all of the politcal posts on my Facebook newsfeed)


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Providing Commercial Paving or Residential Driveway services near you.
Looking for a high quality asphalt paving contractor near me in Hampton? If so, Hampton Paving is the company to hire. We specialize in both commercial and residential asphalt paving solutions that you can count on. Our team of paving contractors is dedicated to giving you the best service, at competitive prices, with high quality results.


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Great to debate, but let's have a format that reflects our multi-party era
Great to debate, but let's have a format that reflects our multi-party era
Commenting on the broadcasters' proposal for three TV debates in the run up to the 2015 General Election [1], Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said:
"It's great to see some momentum behind the idea of TV debates. At their best, TV debates can make political issues come alive for the electorate, and after the success of 2010 voters expect to get this opportunity to hear directly from party leaders. It would be hugely disappointing to go back to the old days of no TV debates.
"But the format suggested by the broadcasters doesn't really reflect the fact that we are now firmly in a multi-party era. It's difficult to see how to justify the exclusion of smaller parties from the debates. And having a two-party duel between Labour and the Conservatives simply doesn't reflect the way people see politics these days. Democracy is about hearing from everyone, not just from the two men most likely to be Prime Minister.
"People have changed since the heyday of the two-party system, and they want to hear a variety of voices in politics. The debates should be an opportunity to hear from the leaders of all parties which command a significant amount of support.
"Of course there are practicalities to consider in order to decide where to draw the line, but the principle should be in favour of openness rather than shutting people out. We want to see a format that fairly represents all of the parties which field candidates across the country and which people support in significant numbers."
For more information, interviews and comment, contact Will Brett on 07979 696 265 / email@example.com
[1] See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29595529
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All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord. –Proverbs 16:2
A lady answered the knock on her door to find a man with a sad expression. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, "but I'm collecting money for an unfortunate family in the neighborhood. The husband is out of work, the kids are hungry, the utilities will soon be cut off and worse, they're going to be kicked out of their apartment if they don't pay the rent by this afternoon." "I'll be happy to help," said the woman with great concern. "But who are you?" "I'm the landlord," he replied.*
We all have motives for the things we do. Yet, often these motives operate unchecked, below the surface of our own awareness. Could it be that like the landlord in the story, our motives for doing good deeds are too often layered with self-interest? I believe that all Christians, to one extent or another, struggle with mixed motives for our actions. When we take time to truthfully evaluate, we find that we constantly face the inward tug-of-war between saint and sinner. Like the Apostle Paul, all Christ-followers experience the desire to do those things that please the Lord, but often end up doing something different instead. Or, like the landlord in the story, we bring mixed motives to even our best attempts to serve in Jesus' name. We serve the Lord, even while pursuing self-interests like recognition, fame, comfort, success, pride, control, money, getting someone off our back and the like.
What's the answer to the problem of mixed motives? Honestly, I think this is a life-long struggle we face. We need to be prepared for the battle. We can minimize the effect of our own mixed motives by being honest with ourselves, performing regular self-evaluation combined with confession and repentance. God's grace is sufficient to help us win the daily battles. We will never completely banish this foe from our lives during this life, but we can gain the upper hand in the struggle by checking our motives regularly and by trusting God to make us more like His Son.
1. Reflect on a recent experience where you volunteered time to serve in a ministry or did something good for someone else. Can you identify any mixed motives that were at work?
2. If you find that you are experiencing a struggle with mixed motives, confess this to the Lord. Ask for His presence in your life to help you put away self-interest in your actions.
Proverbs 4:23, Romans 7:15-25; 1 Corinthians 4:5, James 4:3
* 750 Engaging Illustrations, Craig Larson, editor; Baker Publishing; 2002.


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Sweden's Lantmännen Gooh is among the first to commercialize an in-pack microwave cooking and pasteurization concept called MicVac. MicVac AB (www.micvac.com), in close cooperation with SEALPAC (www.sealpacusa.com), developed this unique packaging concept for chilled ready meals. It provides a refrigerated shelf life of at least 30 days at 8 deg C while ensuring maximum taste, nutritional value, and texture.
The company Lantmännen Gooh—or Gooh!, as it's commonly called in Sweden—was founded in 2005 as a joint venture between food manufacturer Lantmännen Cerealia and a top Swedish restaurant called Operakällaren. The initiative came from Lantmännen Cerealia, part of the Lantmännen Group, a huge food, energy, and agriculture player in Scandinavia. The company is owned by 37,000 Swedish farmers and has 10,500 employees. It conducts business operations in 18 different countries under brands such as AXA, Kungsörnen, Start, Hattings, Regal, and Kronfägel in addition to Gooh!.
As Lantmännen Cerealia, already strong in pasta, breakfast cereals, and flour, went looking for new and upcoming markets, chilled ready meals were identified as a growing trend. That's when Operakällaren was brought into the picture. A key goal behind the whole Gooh! concept is to give more people the opportunity to eat tasty, well prepared, and healthful food at a reasonable price. In fact, the word "Gooh" in Swedish is short for "Good and Healthy" (GOtt Och Halsosamt). All of Gooh!'s meals are carefully designed by Stefano Catenacci, chef at Operakällaren. The dishes are based on his original recipes and only contain the freshest ingredients. At the moment, 45 employees are working daily on Gooh!'s premium ready meals.
The MicVac method of preparing food involves a thermoformed tray filled with raw food ingredients—meat, poultry, onions, celery—and certain ingredients such as potatoes or rice that are partially pre-cooked. Onto the filled tray a flexible film lidding is heat sealed in place. Both the preformed polypropylene tray and the peelable PA/PP lidding material are made under license by cooperating manufacturers and are supplied to Gooh! by MicVac.
Just before the lidding material is applied to the filled trays, a custom-made labeler from ELS (www.european-labelling-system.de) punches a small hole in the lidstock and applies over the hole a special MicVac valve. The servo-driven film transport of the SEALPAC traysealer helps deliver the accurate hole-punching and label-positioning that are required. In addition, the SEALPAC A7, due to its high sealing pressure and accurate control of sealing temperature, guarantees that the seal of the lidstock to the tray is strong enough to withstand the internal pressure during pasteurization and heating up in the consumer's microwave oven yet remains easy to peel away when the heated food comes out of the microwave.
Microwave tunnel
Filled and lidded trays are sent through a microwave tunnel, which is also supplied by MicVac. Trays move through this tunnel three-across, and the contents are cooked for 4 to 10 minutes depending on the size of the particulates in the tray. During this cook process, the MicVac valve opens to release internal pressure created as the food releases steam. The patented valve is designed so that it can open and close multiple times.
As soon as the pasteurization process is completed, trays enter a spiral cooler and the MicVac valve closes. Steam trapped inside the tray condenses. This causes internal vacuum pressure to build, causing the bottom of the specially developed FlexTray to curve upward while the lidding film is pulled down towards the food contents. Shortly after the spiral cooler, the trays run through a conventional sleever for application of a decorative paperboard sleeve. With that, the vacuum-packed meals are ready for distribution to today's convenience-hungry consumer.
One of the great benefits of the MicVac microwave pasteurization system is that, compared to comparable pasteurization techniques such as batch retort or "sous vide," the food doesn't spend nearly as much time being exposed to thermal processing. The shorter processing time means better taste and nutrition retention. Consumers also can enjoy a delicious, convenient, ready meal without artificial preservatives or flavorings. And they're spared the guesswork that sometimes comes with heating a ready meal in the microwave oven because when the dish is ready for serving, the MicVac emits a whistling sound as it opens to allow steam to be vented.
The final result is a cooked, pasteurized, and vacuum packaged ready meal with good flavor, nutrients, and texture. Retailers like the fact that the package, because it's vacuum packaged, can be displayed attractively in the store either vertically or horizontally.
Production of Gooh!'s ready meals takes place in the Swedish town of Jarna, about 50 km from Stockholm, in a room that was added onto an existing Lantmännen facility producing pasta and muesli. SEALPAC distributor Nemco (www.nemco.se) played a key role in helping assemble the automated line.
Careful research
"We chose the current manufacturing line after an intensive decision-making process," says Henrik Jacobson, production manager and vice president of Gooh!. "Nemco was the only one who could provide a complete line with denesting, tray-sealing, and various filling systems while synchronizing those systems with the microwave cooking, spiral cooling, metal detection, and sleeving equipment from various suppliers. They recommended a SEALPAC A7 traysealer including a custom-made applicator for the MicVac® label as centrepiece. Nemco's Sales Director, Lars Olsgaard, came down to our production site in Järna to explain the benefits of the recommended line. During a visit to Kronfågel, also part of the Lantmännen Group, we were able to see the SEALPAC A7 traysealer in actual operation, as well as a machine made by a SEALPAC competitor. Based on the feedback we got from the operators at Kronfågel, we felt SEALPAC was the way to go. A subsequent visit to SEALPAC's ultramodern production facility in Northern Germany confirmed this feeling.
"Nemco's role as project engineer was extremely valuable to us. We have no less than five different fillers that can be positioned along the infeed conveyor according to the needs of each product. Obviously, packaging salmon with peeled potatoes is a different process than packing Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes. Especially challenging was adapting the line to the ingredients that we don't use very often. But again, this is part of our high food-quality standards."
Gooh! distributes its ready meals primarily through major Swedish retailers in the Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg areas. Selling price is between 4.50 and 7 Euros ($6.50 and $10). A second important channel is catering. The company's meals are placed in vending machines at various workplace canteens. By promoting the meals in the workplace, Gooh! sees an increase in consumption at home because employees who enjoy the ready meals at work want to take their experience home to their families. Other target groups include hotels, hospital staff, and airline catering.
Jacobson sums the whole project up this way. "We are currently producing around 30 hours per week, but we see a rising consumer interest in these products beginning to develop. No major expansion is expected in the near future, but we have the possibility to set up two more production lines in Jarna as soon as the market takes off. Being part of the Lantmännen Group means stability. They regard Gooh! as a long-term investment, giving us time and opportunity to optimize the concept. One thing we won't do is make concessions on the quality or price of our ready meals. It's our chef who determines the taste of the meals, and it's the MicVac method that guarantees their shelf life and convenience." PW