Everything was born from the idea of smartly reusing our deep know-how in high-frequency electronics gained in almost twenty years of experience in telecommunications. We were watching a microwave oven powered by a magnetron and the soup rotating at the center of the oven looked like a scene from an old black&white movie. Why don`t we think about the soup standing still and letting the microwave field rotate around the plate? It would be necessary to replace a technology in vogue for 70 years but it`s worth it, we thought. After all, even Mikolaj Kopernik, after 1500 years when the sun went around the earth, turned the earth around the sun. A revolution that could also be introduced to the world of microwave cooking: KOPERNICOOK!
The idea was immediately shared with all the Leanfa stakeholders, a careful market research was launched, then a business plan and the system design: hardware, software, and precision mechanics. Kopernicook immediately showed significant advantages in terms of accuracy, flexibility, safety and efficiency, and applications are manifold: post-harvest sanitization of vegetables; microbiological decontamination of raw food before storage; pasteurization and sterilization of food ready for consumption; sanitization and shelf-life extension of fourth-range food products; production of food (derived from cereals, dairy, meat) and spices; extraction of nutraceuticals for the pharmaceutical industry, for the production of functional foods and for cosmetics; production of wood and semi-finished glass products; production of drugs; production of textiles and paints; waste treatment in recycling phases; drying of materials of different nature and of fruit and vegetables; remediation of handicrafts affected by insects and microorganisms; disinfestation of wooden pallets and boxes for international trade; disinfestation of trees/plants damaged by pests.
The collaboration with the Polytechnic and the University of Bari and with the University of Foggia gave us a whole new gear and encouraging  acknowledgements from the industrial world arrived: Special Mention by the technical committee at Confindustria Best Practices Award in June 2015, entrance in Confindustria MatchUp program in October 2015, involvement of Silicon Valley stakeholders a month later, entrance in the Ampioraggio ecosystem in March 2016 and finally the `Best Export Promise` prize at the Export2Succeed Award two weeks ago.
And while the Kopernicook story continues, our laboratory benches are now crowded with test reports, circuit boards, sensors, instrumentation and computers which, thanks to the supervision of our skilled engineers, help us to implement the revolution we imagined slightly more than two years ago. And today the microwave oven movie scene can finally be displayed with colors!