In the food industry there are many applications in which gases or liquids need to be measured or controlled. For example, these applications include the aeration process or the dosage of additives, like flavours and colourants. Indirectly, surface treatment applications like the sterilization of packaging is of high importance as well. Bronkhorst has published many stories regarding the omnifarious and demanding food industry and I would like to share some of these stories with you.
Additive dosing for confectionery industry
There is a huge variation in candy available on the market, each brand with its own taste, texture and appearance. Erwin Broekman had the opportunity to visit Haas-Mondomix, a machine builder that is specialized in equipment for the food industry. With ultrasonic volume flow meters, Haas-Mondomix measures the amount of additives – flavourings, colourings and acids – that are added to the main stream of the production process.
In the chocolate confectionery industry, there’s an ever increasing number of variations in flavours as well. Due to this enormous growth, mass flow meters and controllers find their way into the confectionery industry. Coriolis flow meters in combination with a pump are an ideal solution for dosing flavours and functional ingredients.
Aeration within the production process of delicacies like ice cream and cake
Ice cream is made by freezing and simultaneously blending air into a brewage of fat, sugar and milk solids. Air makes up anywhere from 30% to 50% of the total volume of ice cream, so aeration is crucial during production. A side effect of adding air to ice cream is that it tends to melt more quickly. Thus, for attaining an optimal structure of the ice cream, it’s important to have a stable inlet air flow in the production process with a constant cream/air ratio. This can be achieved by using a mass flow controller.
Aeration is also a crucial process in the production of whipped cream. This is done at Hansa Industrie-Mixer, a worldwide company that operates in the field of mixing machines and foam generators for the food and non-food industry.
Steralisation of food packaging to reduce food waste
However, all that food production does have a downside; food waste. Globally food is lost or wasted at different points in the supply chain. One of the ways to reduce food waste is to improve the sterilization of the packaging that food is placed in, to reduce spoilage and increase shelf life. This is the point where Controlled Evaporation Mixing (CEM) systems come in the picture.