Category: Process Control

Things are really getting cheesy at BUCHI.

When prodded, I suppose many at BUCHI would agree that some of the cheesiest members of the team belong to the NIR group.

Maybe that’s something to be proud of!

More cheese, please!

Cheese is delicious, after all. With a global market of around $100 Billion USD, I think there is a general agreement on the matter.

There are many ways to consume cheese, of course. Processed cheese products like fondue have their place on the cheese continuum, particular around special events like graduation parties and weddings that seem to dominate our summer calendars.

Manufacturing processed cheese products like fondue is a complex task, with special emphasis on key quality parameters like total solids and fat content.

These products are typically produced by blending one or more shredded natural cheeses with additional ingredients, such as: emulsifying salts, condiments, flavors and other goodies. This mixture is then heated and sheared until a homogeneous molten mass is obtained which can be poured into heart- or graduation-capped shaped molds or other shapes for future devouring.

In order to consistently deliver the same great-tasting product, real-time control of key quality attributes is a must. Monitoring total solids content, fat, salt, pH, homogeneity and more during a blend can allow for real-time process adjustments to meet all of the quality targets and avoid having to rework a batch. The end result: tasty cheese products (read: make money) and improved manufacturing efficiency (read: save money).

While traditional laboratory methods exist for determining the quality parameters, issues with representative sampling and the method collection times are rate-limiting.

Want to learn more? Contact Us and request Short Note #357, or ask to speak with an Applications Specialist to learn more about how you can implement NIR for better process control in cheese manufacturing.

You can also visit our NIR-Online Solutions page to learn more.

If cheese quality is on your mind, but an on-line solution isn’t a good fit, BUCHI also has milk & dairy solutions for our off-line and at-line NIR. You can use our NIR Applications Finder on-line tool to configure the perfect NIR solution for you. Choose your industry and products, then get a full listing of available pre-calibrated applications, plus a quote.

Among our pre-calibrated parameters, you’ll find: dry matter, moisture, fat, protein, lactose, fatty acids, total sugar, ash and more.

Use our new NIR Application Finder to get the latest in Pre-Calibrated Solutions for your industry.

Interested in an application that isn’t listed? Fear not! We have a team of Application Scientists at the ready. Reach them using our Application Support Request Form .

If you’re looking for the full gamut of our published cheese & dairy applications, check out the BUCHI Application Finder. You’ll find methods related to:

  • Extraction
  • Spray Drying
  • Kjeldahl for protein determination
  • Near-infrared spectroscopy

Stay cheesy, my friends!

Quality is Going to the Dogs.

Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.

This week, BUCHI Product and Application Specialists mingled with pet food suppliers and manufacturers at the Petfood Forum 2019 in Kansas City, MO. Some key topics on deck for event speakers include nutrition, labeling, product development, safety and manufacturing.

BUCHI Laboratory Solutions can help keep the fur kids happy and healthy.

Did you know BUCHI has its paws in the formulation, quality control and labeling aspects of the pet food industry?

Formulation

Our spray dryer and freeze dryer equipment can be used to develop innovative, nutritious and shelf-stable products for happy, healthy pets. These technologies have been used to optimize stability and bioavailability for pet food ingredients, including: natural products, amino acids, proteins, vitamins and oils.

Quality Control

WATT Global Media conducted a survey and identified raw material ingredient quality as the top concern among surveyed Petfood Forum registrants. BUCHI provides expertise and laboratory and process equipment which helps to address quality standards at various stages along the pet food value chain, from raw material intake, to in-process quality control, to finished product testing to validate label claims.

The multi-axis plot shown below is a type of decision tree to determine which is the most appropriate method to select for protein determination, comparing Kjeldahl (red line), Dumas (yellow dashed line) and NIR (blue dashed line). For example, if your current need is for a high-speed analysis with a small environmental footprint, suitable for moderate sample type variation, then NIR is a good choice. If labeling compliance is of chief concern, with potential to adapt methods to broad variation in sample types, then Kjeldahl is a better selection.

Raw material inspection is an important component of a quality control program. Understanding the actual quality and parameters of incoming materials can help avoid process or nutritional deviations that occur because of out-of-spec ingredients. There is also an economical component: formulate closer to target and minimize issues like “protein give-away,” or avoid product recalls due to mislabeled or contaminated ingredients.

Near-infrared spectroscopy is one tool in the analytical toolbox that has been useful for establishing quality in raw ingredients, from grains to raw meats. The speed of analysis is well-suited for a quick quality check against Certificates of Analysis upon receipt of supplied goods.

Typical parameters measured by NIR in meat products include: protein, fat and moisture. For meat applications, color, pH, salt, starch and collagen content may also be implemented. These and other calibrations may be further refined with the addition of samples representative of the ingredient suppliers used within any production scheme.

Click to view a webinar highlighting ways to manage pet food production & quality using NIR

Properties of raw meat ingredients can be monitored at the time of their production, with installation points over a conveyor belt, directly in product pipes or processing equipment including deboners, grinders or mixers. An example of online measurements of protein, moisture and fat content of minced meat at a mixer has been described in a BUCHI short note . These same calibrations can be applied in-line or off-line for the pet food manufacturer who sources meat from a supplier. Large premium meat producers such as Mircana have successfully implemented this equipment to make real-time corrections to processing deviations at the mixer.

Watch this short clip to see how single or multipoint inline NIR sensors can help you control your production process

Labeling

Kjeldahl is the most established reference method for protein determination in feed, and commonly serves as a reference for NIR. You can find applications for protein and fat determination by Kjeldahl and Soxhlet extraction using our BUCHI Application Finder. Some of the content you’ll find includes:

The BUCHI Booth at Petfood Forum is getting packed up later today. If you missed us, Contact Us to schedule a chat with an Application Specialist, or even a virtual demo!

Chemical Industry QC with NIR

 

Read this post, or watch the webinar instead!

Quality control for many labs involves a heavy dose of wet chemistry methods, things like titration and separation techniques that take skill, time and (even more) chemicals to execute. Luckily, some of these traditional testing methods can be replaced by simple, fast and safe NIR spectroscopy.

While this blog title indicates applicability to the Chemical Industry, “chemical” is one broad umbrella. There are myriad products and processes that fall under the chemicals category, from natural products like wood and pulp to personal care products to standard bulk chemicals. Reaching all of these audiences with one blog post seemed a little daunting until we broke it down to some common key themes for implementation of NIR for the chemical (or any!) industry:

  • Raw material qualification
  • Intermediate/in-process testing
  • Finished product testing

Of course, the typical applications that might fall into any one of these categories will differ based on the products being produced. Some of the more common applications include:

  • Material identification
  • %-Moisture or %-solvent quantification
  • Reaction extent or %-polymerization
  • Hydroxyl and acid number determination

As with many other industries, the raw materials used for production of chemical products are often non-discrete, sourced from various parts of the galaxy, and labeled–sometimes correctly, sometimes not.  If you follow product recalls, you’ll find that millions of dollars have been lost due to mislabeled containers being poured into mixers, placed on trucks for distribution to other producers, or stocked on store shelves.

NIR is one quick tool used for identity testing of routinely received materials. There is potential to differentiate isomers, crystalline forms, chemical analogs, fatty acids, and even contaminated materials. Because identity testing with NIR takes seconds and can be done in the warehouse, more frequent testing can be accomplished without backlogging the QC guys and gals.

On the quantitative side, there is plenty to measure keeping in mind the inherent sensitivity of NIR to particular molecular bonds, including O-H, C-H, N-H and C-O bonds. So, if those bonds are changing in type or in number, NIR could be a great fit. This is the case in the typical chemical application of determining hydroxyl number, where we observe a decrease in NIR signal attributed to O-H bonds as those O-H end groups are consumed during polymerization. In fact, determining hydroxyl number of polyols by NIR is a standard practice per ASTM and ISO.

BUCHI Market Manager and former BUCHI NIR Applications Specialist Ryanne Palermo produced a short webinar on these topics, including a fiery example of tracking nitrogen substitution in nitrocellulose. Tune into the webinar by clicking here.

Find more free, streaming content on our BUCHI Webinar On-Demand page, including information about preparative chromatography, laboratory and industrial evaporation, drying, encapsulation and more.

 

Champion saves the day: Volume 2 Production

In-process and at-line NIR for production

Beat the costs in production! Download Volume 2 of the Champions’ Guidebook and find out how to save money while monitoring production lines.

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Our determined (and love-struck) food champion, Max, is back at it. Check out the newest animated video to see how NIR can avoid costly production errors (and increase profitability) after googly-eyed Max’s big goof-up.

One of the greatest assets of on-line and at-line NIR is having a second set of (focused) “eyes” on production operations. The NIR can be trained to measure critical material properties for in-process or finished products, or even do simple identification procedures to confirm questions like: is Product A is actually being produced?

Max may be a little distracted at times, but NIR can still make him a champion!

Be a Food Analysis Champion!

Save time with efficient incoming goods inspection

New BUCHI campaign delivers 3 e-booklets to create Food Analysis Champions!

beattheclock

Every day, food producers undergo myriad processes and procedures designed to achieve a quality product and (hopefully) a profitable business.

The loading docks and warehouse serve as initial points of contact for ingredients and foodstuffs that will become integrated into delicious (and sometimes nutritious) food products. It is the obligation of the producer to ensure that they are obtaining the highest quality and correctly priced goods prior to feeding those ingredients into the production process.

Our first booklet provides insight into challenges and opportunities related to incoming goods inspection, including:

  • Typical slow-downs in incoming goods receiving
  • Tips to meeting incoming goods inspection requirements efficiently
  • Benefits of using fast, non-destructive NIR analysis for testing incoming goods
  • Improving time-to-result for classical reference methods (i.e. extraction and Kjeldahl)
  • Sample NIR and classical testing applications to help you save time!

Download this complimentary resource, and stay tuned for future additions to the series, including: production and finished goods control!

For some nice (and enlightening) lunch break entertainment, watch our Food Analysis Champion, Max, save the day when production is halted due to QC backlog in the BUCHI animated video short series for “Beat the Clock.”

 

Next at bat: BUCHI @ PROCESS EXPO

Summer might be coming to a close, but our PROCESS EXPO pre-game is just heating up!

HOF Weekend 1957 Game_action_no acc #_CSU

The global food equipment and technology show PROCESS EXPO is being held in Chicago, home of the defending World Series Champions. You can catch us there September 19-22. In the spirit of the game and in anticipation for the Fall Pennant Races, the BUCHI Booth will be hosting a Wii Sports Home Run Derby competition! Be sure to stop by and take a swing for a chance to win some swag.

While you wait to step up to the plate, check out the NIR-Online, our in-line near-infrared sensor that will help you hit a Grand Slam in process control!

Not into baseball? BUCHI has something for you industry, including classical Kjeldahl reference methods and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for food analysis, in addition to spray-drying, encapsulation and freeze-drying.

Looking for a way around those long QC queues? Check out our NIRSolutions for the PROCESS EXPO industry sectors: 

Confectionery, Baking and Snack

We already blogged about some of the sweet stuff BUCHI can do in the chocolate industry, but our products can provide quantitative measurements for much more:

  • Whole & ground cereals (e.g. wheat, semolina, barley, rice, corn/maize)
  • Hulls & bran
  • Oil seed meals
  • Fats & oils (e.g. vegetable oils and animal fats)
  • Egg &  milk derivatives (e.g. egg powder, liquid egg, milk powder)
  • Dry pasta & noodles
  • Ready-meals (e.g. lasagna, frozen pizza)
  • Confectionary (e.g. chocolate, cocoa & derivatives)

Meat, Poultry and Seafood

Protein builds muscle, and BUCHI has flexed some muscles in the QC of many meats and meat products, including:

  • Animal meat (e.g. beef, pork, turkey, wild animals)
  • Fish meat
  • Sausage
  • Animal flour
  • Fish meal
  • Pig adipose tissue

Dairy

Our BUCHI NIR products are used to make sure that the stuff that goes into milk and milk products are in-spec, including:

  • Milk
  • Yogurt and fresh cheese
  • Hard, semi-hard and soft cheese
  • Processed cheese
  • Butter
  • Milk creams
  • Milk powders

Frozen and Prepared Foods

When you don’t have time to cook or time for long lab turn-around times, BUCHI NIR has methods developed for:

  • Dry pasta/noodles
  • Ready-meals (e.g. lasagna, meat pie, meat & fish ready noodles, frozen pizza)

Beverage

Drink up! BUCHI NIR can be used for quality control of beverages:

  • Distillers grains
  • Milk powders
  • Chocolate (e.g. cocoa & derivatives)

Getting hungry for more information?

Check out our Application Finder on the BUCHI website or Contact us to talk about your specific application needs.

 

Feed Manufacturing: Profit with In-line NIR Process Control

The BUCHI Crew is hitting the road this week for the 2017 International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta, Georgia. Sounds peachy! Find us in Hall C, Booth 205.

IPPE is hailed as the largest annual trade show for the poultry, meat and feed industries. The show focuses on innovation, education, global reach and networking. So, what does BUCHI have to offer these industries? Let’s talk about real-time process monitoring and how it plays into profitability. 

Is moisture content in feed synonymous with profit margin? Talk to a feed producer and you’re likely to see a head nodding in agreement.

How valuable would it be to have a continuous read-out of the moisture content of your feed at points along the process where you can still adjust your process to reach a moisture target? Sounds like money in the bank, and BUCHI near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a proven tool for the job. It’s also possible to monitor other critical feed parameters, like protein and fat, simultaneously.

Check out this short note showing how a BUCHI NIR-Online® process analyzer was used to monitor fat, protein, moisture and crude fiber after the mixing step in a feed operation. Or, read below for a case study at the German RKW mill that produces 75,000K tons of mixed feed annually and uses BUCHI IR-Online® to improve profitability.

The production process

At the RKW Kehl production facility the process begins with a check of raw materials for upcoming orders. The feed is predominately composed of soy and maize cereals, with minerals, vitamins and amino-acid supplementation. Feed composition is obtained by the required moisture, fat, protein, crude fiber and starch of each recipe. Due to the inherent variability of these nutrients in the incoming raw materials, the ratio of raw components needed to fulfill the nutrient profile of each recipe must be recalculated daily.

Mixtures under scrutiny

Raw materials are selected, scaled and mixed according to ordered batch recipes using the process control system. The quality control group determines whether a feed mixture falls below a required protein or fat content, or if moisture needs adjusted to meet specifications. Prior to the installation of the NIR-Online® process analyzers, the answers to these questions came from traditional laboratory analysis with long wait times. Now, the answers are streaming in real-time using the NIR-Online® device at the end of the mixing unit.

Near-infrared (NIR) light emitted from the sensors illuminates product through an installed window resulting in absorption by the sample, which is characteristic of its composition.  These readings are visualized in process charts by personnel in the switch room. If preset parameters are over- or under-run, corrective adjustments can be made immediately. Integration of the NIR-Online® products with the existing process control system provides the opportunity for automatically generated, highly detailed process documentation.

In-line control

“[Because the process can be stopped or adjusted early in production if specifications are not met] the utilization of NIR-Online® has minimized expensive rejects and complaints,” said Mr. Lühr, as he described the financial advantages of the NIR-Online® solution. “This benefit is further increased with the possibility of adjusting moisture content in real time.”

The NIR-Online® process software calculates the difference between the in-line property measurement and the batch set point without stopping production, ensuring moisture addition is precisely controlled for each batch.

“If we are able to converge within 0.5% of the moisture set point of a batch, we can sell more than 375 tons of additional mixed feed per year – a substantial benefit. “The investment in NIR-Online® technology will be paid for in a few months”, Mr. Lühr stated.

Find out more

Use the BUCHI Application Finder to explore additional application notes related to NIR in the feed industry. Or, Contact Us to get details on the broad array of feed materials and properties that can be measured by NIR.

Looking for a different technology? Click here to see results that include applications for all of the BUCHI product solutions for the feed industry, including: Kjeldahl, Dumas, extraction and spray-drying.