Freshseal's EIC Accelerator Microwave Food Dryer, 7 Years On

Freshseal Limited, a small food company in Donnington, Telford, made chicken kebabs and food processing machinery, and for a decade it also tried to commercialise a new way of drying and cooking food. Its Mildtech system combines a vacuum chamber with microwave energy from solid-state generators, so that fruit, vegetables, fish or milk can be dried at temperatures the company put at "up to 35 ºC". In the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 round of 5 June 2019, the forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, the European Commission selected its MILDTECH project, listed under the truncated name "Fresh" in the official list of winners. The EU contributed €1,834,682.50 towards a total cost of €2,620,975, according to CORDIS.

The project ran from December 2019 to July 2022 and, by the company's own account, produced industrial, catering and domestic versions of the machine and two patent applications. Freshseal itself did not survive. On 25 March 2025 its members resolved to wind it up, and a creditors' voluntary liquidation began that day, according to Companies House and the London Gazette. The technology now sits with Mildtech UK Ltd, a separate company set up in December 2022 with the same directors.

A Liquidation With No Dividend in Sight

The director's statement of affairs, dated 25 March 2025, lists assets of a motor vehicle with a book value of £1,678 and £7,035.93 in the bank, against claims from trade creditors, employees, HM Revenue and Customs, a £60,000 Funding Circle loan and a £12,500.15 Lloyds Bounce Back Loan. The estimated deficiency was £262,880.58, according to the filing at Companies House. The Gazette notice of the liquidator's appointment gives the nature of the business as "manufacture and wholesale the distribution of chicken kebabs and food processing machinery".

The liquidator, Andrew William Shackleton of Smart Insolvency Solutions, filed his first annual progress report in July 2026. He wrote that it was "unlikely that a dividend will be paid to any class of creditor", that his review of four years of bank statements found "no matters that justified further investigation", and that the liquidation would stay open until a payment for the motor vehicle was received from the former director. Funding Circle's claim came in at £73,036.69. By 24 March 2026 the liquidator had realised £7,085.31, almost all of it the cash in the bank. Neither the statement of affairs nor the report lists patents or any other intellectual property among the company's assets.

The Technology: Microwaves Under Vacuum

Lowering the pressure lowers the boiling point of water, so a vacuum dryer can remove moisture at temperatures that do not destroy vitamins, colour or flavour. Microwaves heat the water inside the food directly, which is faster than hot air. Microwave vacuum drying itself is not new: a continuous microwave and vacuum dryer was patented in the United States in 1977 as US4045639A. Freeze drying, the usual way to dry heat-sensitive food without heat, is much slower, Mildtech says. Freshseal's claimed difference was the microwave source: two frequencies produced by solid-state generators instead of a conventional magnetron, controlled by a "smart" system with a library of recipes for each food.

The company said the system dried food "40% faster than conventional microwave vacuum dryers" with "up to 80% less energy", and cooked a whole chicken in 17 minutes instead of 1.5 hours with 10% to 15% less weight loss, in its Phase 1 project summary. These figures come from the company and the earlier EU research project; no independent test of them has been published. Two patent applications filed by Freshseal on 16 February 2022, GB2615764A for a solid-state dual-frequency microwave drying and heating apparatus and GB2615765A for a dual-frequency antenna, describe the design. Both are listed as pending.

What MILDTECH Promised, and What the Record Shows

MILDTECH was the third EU grant for the same idea. Freshseal was a partner in the FP7 project MILD-DRY, coordinated by IRIS Technology Solutions in Spain from September 2012 to August 2014, with an EU contribution of €183,439 for Freshseal, according to CORDIS. In 2017 it received €50,000 for a six-month SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study, which forecast a cumulative turnover of "~€ 33M" over five years, according to its Phase 1 report.

For Phase 2, the CORDIS objective promised more applications, a recipe library, a smart control system, a 30 kW unit downsized to 5 kW with a capacity of 250 kg an hour, a 2.5 kW catering unit for 50 kg an hour and a design for a 2 kW domestic unit, and in the longer term a 100 kW conveyor line for 1,000 kg an hour. Freshseal was the only beneficiary. The grant agreement was signed on 29 November 2019, and the project started on 1 December 2019.

The company's final periodic report says it designed, built and optimised machines "in industrial, catering, and domestic formats", built a control system based on process analytical technology, filed two patent applications, set up manufacturing and quality control and "generated the interest of early adopters and first clients". It names no client. It blames Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine for delays and thanks the EU for granting extensions; the original end date is not public. CORDIS lists deliverables including datasheets, user manuals and test-site case studies, and the Mildtech trade mark, registered in the UK on 2 February 2021.

1. Industrial and catering machinesDeliveredFinal report; Mildtech UK now lists 2 kW and 5 kW models.
2. Smart control system and recipe libraryCompany claimDescribed in the final report; no independent test published.
3. Protect the designDeliveredTwo GB applications in 2022, a trade mark in 2021.
4. 250 kg an hour 5 kW unitNot shownThe 5 kW MTECH50 is sold by batch, 50 to 80 kg.
5. Domestic unitNot achievedNo domestic machine has been announced.
6. Sales by FreshsealNot achievedNo customer named; company liquidated in 2025.

The Money

Freshseal was tiny when it won the grant. At 30 September 2019 it had £3,734 in the bank and net liabilities of £33,250, according to its filed accounts at Companies House. A year later, ten months into the project, cash stood at £226,310 and staff had grown from 7 to 13. The 2021 accounts restated the 2020 equity from £11,420 to £74,572 after a corporation tax adjustment of £63,151.

After the project, the figures turned. Staff fell to 10 and then 8; net liabilities reached £41,533 in September 2022 and £225,397 in September 2023, when the company had £2,552 in cash. The share capital stayed at £100 throughout; the balance sheets show bank loans and other creditors instead of new equity. Because Freshseal filed small-company accounts without a profit and loss account, its revenue and how much of the EU grant it received in the end are not public.

Where the Technology Went

Mildtech UK Ltd was incorporated on 1 December 2022, five months after the EIC project ended. Its directors are Georgios, Yiannoulla, Vasos and Andreas Vanezi, and Georgios and Vasos Vanezi each hold 25% to 50% of it, according to Companies House. The European patent application in the family that began with Freshseal's 2022 filings, EP4480277A1, was published on 25 December 2024 in Mildtech UK's name, and the matching US application lists both companies as original assignees and Mildtech UK as the current one. How and when the rights passed from Freshseal, and whether anything was paid for them, is not stated in any public filing found for this article.

Mildtech UK has kept going. Innovate UK funded its project on a low-energy dehydration machine using gallium nitride (GaN) solid-state RF generators with £557,785, from July 2023 to December 2024, according to UKRI's Gateway to Research; the company's announcement names Harper Adams University as its partner. Its website lists three standard machines: the MTECH10 and MTECH20 at 2 kW and the MTECH50 at 5 kW, with batch capacities from 10 to 80 kg, plus contract drying. In February and March 2026 it issued shares to settle £89,028 of loans and sold new Ordinary A shares for £250,000 and £70,000, according to its accounts for the 18 months to 30 June 2026 filed on 7 October 2026. The startup database Halo names SFC Capital as the £70,000 investor. Mildtech UK reported net assets of £320,958 and £238,502 in cash at 30 June 2026, and 5 average employees.

Why It Matters for Europe

Freshseal pitched its dryer as a way to cut the energy used in food processing and to keep more nutrients in dried food without preservatives, aims that sit under the EU's Farm to Fork strategy for a more sustainable food system. The solid-state RF generators at its core are semiconductor devices, a field the EU wants to strengthen at home under the European Chips Act. Freshseal's case shows a limit of grant-only support: the EU paid for a working machine, but the beneficiary was a company with £100 of share capital and no outside investor, and the equity that followed went to a different company, after the UK had left the EU.

The Verdict

Freshseal, Mildtech UK, the liquidator and the EIC were not asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.