Method and system for manufacturing a cooked egg product

A system for manufacturing a cooked egg product, in particular sunny side up eggs, the system comprising:

• a cooking conveyor having a plurality of cooking pans;
• an egg cracking machine that deposits raw whole eggs individually onto each of the plurality of cooking pans;
• an induction heater that heats the cooking pans sufficiently to fry the raw whole eggs contained in the cooking pans to make sunny side up cooked eggs;
• a freezer that freezes the sunny side up cooked eggs, resulting in frozen sunny side up cooked eggs;
• a packaging machine that receives the frozen sunny side up cooked eggs and vacuum seals the frozen sunny side up cooked eggs in pouches;
• a heating chamber that receives the pouches of frozen sunny side up cooked eggs and sous vide heats the frozen sunny side up cooked eggs for a time and temperature selected to pasteurize upper surfaces of the sunny side up cooked eggs but below a temperature at which yolks of the cooked sunny side up eggs solidify, resulting in pasteurized sunny side up cooked eggs in the pouches;
• and
• a cooler that chills or freezes the pasteurized cooked sunny side up eggs in the pouches, resulting in chilled or frozen pasteurized sunny side up eggs.

A method for manufacturing a cooked egg product, the method comprising:

• placing raw, shelled eggs on an infeed conveyor in a raw area;
• receiving the raw, shelled eggs from the infeed conveyor and removing the shells from the eggs by an automatic egg cracker, resulting in liquid whole eggs;
• receiving the liquid whole eggs from the automatic egg cracker and placing the liquid whole eggs on a plurality of cooking pans on a cooking conveyor that receives the liquid whole eggs from the automatic egg cracker;
• induction heating the cooking pans sufficiently to cook the liquid whole eggs contained in the plurality of cooking pans, resulting in the cooked egg product in the form of cooked eggs;
• receiving the cooking pans containing the cooked eggs in a pasteurization tunnel and pasteurizing the cooked eggs, resulting in pasteurized cooked eggs;
• and
• receiving the pasteurized cooked eggs in a freezer in a ready-to-eat area and freezing and packaging the pasteurized cooked eggs.

A method for manufacturing a cooked egg product, in particular sunny side up eggs, the method comprising:

• depositing raw whole eggs individually onto each of a plurality of cooking pans;
• induction heating the cooking pans sufficiently to fry the raw whole eggs contained in the cooking pans to make sunny side up cooked eggs;
• freezing the sunny side up cooked eggs in the cooking pans, resulting in frozen sunny side up cooked eggs;
• vacuum sealing the frozen sunny side up cooked eggs in pouches;
• sous vide heating the pouches of frozen sunny side up cooked eggs for a time and temperature selected to pasteurize upper surfaces of the sunny side up cooked eggs but below a temperature at which yolks of the cooked sunny side up eggs solidify, resulting in pasteurized sunny side up cooked eggs in the pouches;
• and
• chilling or freezing the pasteurized cooked sunny side up eggs in the pouches.