Shielding against stains
Every so often great innovations are discovered more by chance than by design. The development of Cif Shield Technology started with just such an accidental observation: one that unlocked the secret to superior cleaning.
Tea before your main course?
Many of our factories produce several different Unilever food brands under one roof. The manufacturing process uses multifunctional stainless steel vessels which require thorough cleaning every time production switches from one product to another.
Factory workers found that, after making a batch of sauce, it was significantly easier to clean these vessels if, prior to the sauce being made, the vessels had been used to process tea. We decided to investigate and discovered it was the tannins in tea that were responsible.
The antioxidant effect
When a consumer spills some pasta sauce, for instance, onto their kitchen worktop, the oils and fats in the sauce will slowly change from an easy-to-clean liquid state to a tougher-to-clean semi-solid state. This change is the result of oxidation, which takes place in the form of chain reactions spreading throughout the spillage.
In our factory vessels, we found that the tannins in tea work as an antioxidant, inhibiting these reactions and keeping the leftover sauce in a liquid state for longer.
