T-R PHOTO BY JAKE RYDER Dr. Lou A. Honary stands in front of a WAVEtek production unit in a showroom in the WAVEtek Process Technology building located in Grundy Center. The WAVEtek process provides for a safer, more-efficient method of batch processing a variety of products using microwave transfer.

GRUNDY CENTER – An area business is introducing a forward-thinking technology aiming to change the way companies process their food products.

WAVEtek Process Technology, LLC, located at 701 A Ave. in Grundy Center, is owned by Dr. Lou A. Honary, a joint founder of Environmental Lubricants Manufacturing (ELM) alongside the University of Northern Iowa Research Foundation, the majority owner. Honary, a former UNI professor of innovation, initially put the wave-based technology into use to help the company’s production of creating soybean oil-based lubricants as a replacement for petroleum lubricants.

Coming up with the WAVEtek process was a matter of necessity for Honary after an ELM facility in Plainfield was destroyed by fire in March 2007. Honary said the fire was caused by the hot oils used to heat ELM’s grease kettles.

“I started researching alternative ways of cooking, and found out about cooking with microwaves,” he said.

After ELM opened operations in Grundy Center, his first application of the WAVEtek process was put in place at the plant and is still in operation today, 14 years after it was implemented.

The WAVEtek process goes beyond a traditional microwave in your kitchen – the waves are instead transmitted from the microwave apparatus through a connected series of “waveguides” that sends the waves into the non-magnetic receptacle of choice, allowing for the waves to cook large quantities of food that would otherwise be impractical to put into a cubical chamber.

“It’s nothing new, just a different way of applying it,” Honary said.

After ELM was acquired by Illinois-based BioBlend Renewable Resources in 2023, Honary transitioned into focusing on WAVEtek as a standalone technology for food processing, as Honary looks to build off the proven success of the technology when it was used on the grease materials at ELM.

He presents the technology as a safer, more efficient heating process for cooking food, and early adopters will be shipped WAVEtek products yet this year after some production delays, which included allowing for Honary to develop a patented window that allows for the waves to enter in through the side of the vessel rather than through the top. Most of the other work in designing WAVEtek products is sub-contracted to local or in-state entities.

The WAVEtek vessels allow for more even cooking with a hyper-minute temperature control that keeps food at the targeted temperature, give or take one degree which prevents any overcooking of product.

A big part of this early phase of WAVEtek is education, Honary said, to help those interested understand more about the process that he admits has been met with skepticism of the safety of using microwaves.

WAVEtek’s location in Grundy Center, which is located inside the former Richelieu Foods building, includes a showroom/workshop area that allows for further understanding of how the technology works, and explaining that the waves used in the process are non-ionizing radiation that, when properly controlled as in the WAVEtek process, do not carry the same risks as more harmful ionizing radiation processes like X-rays.

“We have workshops that we design for two kinds of people – one is the guy who writes the check that wants to make sure his company benefits from the technology and won’t hurt his workers, and the other is the guy cooking who wants to make sure he’s not going to have any health issues,” Honary said. “We’re very passionate and proud of this because we think we’ve got a great technology for people to save money and do things safer and better that doesn’t have the dangers of other methods.”

Honary said companies that could benefit from the technology include those in the dairy industry, wholesale restaurant food distributors like Sysco or even Heinz for processing their ketchup products.

“All of them use steam boilers, in which they have to heat the walls of a tank to cook what’s inside,” Honary said. “I’ve been going to conferences all over the world presenting on this and everywhere I go, people are amazed that we can actually do this.”

He believes the impact of the WAVEtek process may well not be fully realized in his lifetime.

“Society moves very slowly,” Honary said. “Think of kids growing up with cell phones and learning about artificial intelligence and they think this is a good idea, but talk to my dad or my own contemporaries and they’d all think differently.”

More information is available at www.wavetekprocess.com.