Minimise waste and maximise efficiency with Tetra Pak’s industrial protein mixer

Tetra Pak’s Industrial Protein Mixer is designed to help food and beverage manufacturers produce high-quality protein beverages quickly and efficiently.

Not only does the protein mixer make production more streamlined, but it also helps companies meet growing consumer demands for protein-rich products.

Traditional methods of mixing in liquid food production often encounter problems with air entrapment and foaming, resulting in lost product. Foaming alone is estimated to cost approximately €276,400 annually in typical food and beverage production scenarios, making this mixer an important technological evolution for F&B manufacturers aiming to reduce their total cost of ownership, boost margins and improve product quality.

In a typical production scenario based on on-site experience of customers’ protein powder processing. Assumes 300 working days per year, a 35,000kg batch size, 4 batches per day and a 6 EUR/kg DM product cost.

Savings are made up of:

a) foam overflow in mixing phase typically costs €100,000+ per year in product losses

b) product also lost to increased burn-on during heat treatment

c) higher CIP and cleaning downtime costs and d) increased spare part and maintenance costs.

The Tetra Pak Industrial Protein Mixer combats foaming through a sophisticated design and multi-step process that includes reducing air ingress and employing advanced automation to optimise the mixing procedure. The result is a mixing process that is foam-free, which both minimises product loss and streamlines downstream processes, resulting in less downtime due to cleaning and equipment maintenance.

Foaming also causes oxidation, which decreases shelf life and is often combatted by the addition of de-foaming agents like silicon oil. These additives are not needed with the Tetra Pak Industrial Protein Mixer, leading to a product with fewer additives, reduced nutrient oxidation, and longer shelf life.

With 70% of consumers confirming that health has become more important for them over the last few years , and the global market for active nutrition products expected to reach €80 billion by 2030,[3] protein-enriched food products, including powders, represent a growing market. Tetra Pak believes the Industrial Protein Mixer can help F&B manufacturers make the most of this lucrative product category, catering to both current demands and emerging opportunities.

From whey powders to plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins, the mixer can be deployed across a broad spectrum of industrial applications. Furthermore, its capacity to manage production ranging from small trial batches to large-scale outputs of up to 50,000 litres per hour ensures both adaptability and efficiency.

Fiona Liebehenz, vice president key components, plant solutions and channel management at Tetra Pak, notes that the “progressive” new Industrial Product Mixer was the result of a customer approaching it with serious foaming issues, disrupting production and compromising product quality.

“After promising initial tests in mitigating this issue, our highly skilled team in Denmark continued to refine our approach through meticulous and lengthy testing,” Liebehenz says. “The end result is a mixer with multiple relevant new features and a five-step process that together eliminates the root causes of foaming, reduces product loss, and solves the customer’s challenge. It has exceeded expectations by far, leading to an immediate order from the customer.”

She continues: “This is just one example of our commitment to taking care of the immediate needs of our customers, not only solving the problem at hand but creating a solution to improve future productivity and profitability. By working in this way, we support manufacturers to capitalise on a multitude of opportunities for continued growth ased on exceeding expectations of their own consumers and tapping into new markets.”

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