Rising costs are forcing manufacturers to look beyond product reformulation for money-saving measures, and reconsider the efficiency of their processing equipment. And choosing the right mixing equipment plays a key role.
Food and beverage manufacturers continue to face sustained pressure from volatile ingredients pricing, supply chain disruption and tightening margins. While ingredient types and recipe reformulation often dominate the conversation around cost control, many manufacturers could benefit from taking a closer look at the efficiency of their in-factory processes.
As formulations become more complex and the cost of ingredients remain unpredictable, it is now vital to ensure every stage of production delivers. In the current climate, manufacturers can no longer afford to absorb inefficiencies that have previously gone unnoticed and unaddressed. This shift is placing renewed attention on how ingredients are handled, incorporated and processed at scale, particularly in applications where dispersion, hydration and consistency can have a direct impact on both product performance and production efficiency.
Making changes to ways in which a product is processed can be a lengthy process – as well as difficult in regard to securing investment for new equipment, especially when the existing equipment is doing its job. But, having a thorough look at a processing line’s efficiency and identifying areas that could be improved is key to increasing profitability without the need for reformulating products with cheaper ingredient alternatives.
It’s all in the mix
In particular, the efficiency of mixing equipment in the production line can have a real impact on costs and product quality – and increasing its efficiency can improve other areas of the processing line. For example, a mixer that can produce a fine, uniform particle size mixture would be beneficial before a high-pressure homogenising step. The uniform mixture will pass through the homogeniser at a much faster rate and the chance of blockages and, therefore, downtime is greatly reduced.
Another example is where packaging lines fill by volume rather than weight. Incorporating into the processing line a mixer that can keep aeration to a minimum, or even eliminate it from the mixture, enables packages to be filled consistently with product, rather than entrapped air which might not pass quality control checks, potentially slowing down order fulfilment.
The problem with powders
Mixing powders into liquids can also be a challenging task – one which only becomes more difficult, and costly, when using the incorrect mixing equipment. Ingredients such as gums and thickeners, hydrocolloids, starches, difficult powders such as cocoa powder, artificial sweeteners and other functional ingredients – often used in conjunction with one another – can have a substantial commercial impact on a manufacturing process if not incorporated correctly. Not only can these ingredients be expensive, but one of the most common cost-related issues is poor powder incorporation during mixing which, if left unaddressed, can lead to substantial amounts of wasted product and increased processing times.
Powdered ingredients are prone to clump or agglomerate on contact with liquid, preventing full dispersion and creating inconsistencies throughout the batch. Manufacturers often increase processing times by premixing powders with other ingredients before mixing to try and help aid incorporation or by slowly adding the powders to the liquid to try and avoid the formation of agglomerates. Where agglomerates cannot be broken down by the mixing equipment, a filtration stage is often added after mixing, again prolonging processing times. These problems can extend beyond the mixing stage itself. Poor dispersion or uneven hydration can lead to variations, instability and inconsistencies in the finished product.
In some cases, manufacturers compensate by increasing raw material usage, which raises ingredient costs without necessarily resolving the underlying processing issue – in this case the mixing equipment.
The costly implications of getting it wrong
In the case of one customer encountered by Silverson Machines, the manufacturer had to look at their processing efficiency once it became too expensive to sustain their recipe due to a high percentage of pectin in the formulation. The pectin itself was becoming increasingly costly, so something in their process needed to change. The customer had been using a conventional agitator to mix pectin into a base liquid. Although they were able to produce a form of product, it was not an easy or efficient process. The mixing stage alone was taking upwards of 40 minutes to complete. After mixing, further time was added as the mixture needed to be put through a filtration stage to remove agglomerated lumps of un-hydrated pectin. The agitator they were using was so inefficient at dispersing the powder that the operators were adding up to 20% more pectin than was needed to account for what was being lost. The agitator could not break down agglomerates once they had formed and did not produce sufficient movement in the tank to stop partially hydrated pectin from sticking to the agitator shaft, blades and walls of the mixing vessel.
The resulting product was a poor quality 5% pectin solution, wasting 20% of the expensive raw materials added. Coupled with the long mixing times, this wastage was costing the company a considerable amount of money. It was evident that the mixing stage of their process was an area which could be vastly improved.
Trials were undertaken using a high shear powder/liquid mixer in place of the conventional agitator. Unlike conventional mixers or agitators, high shear mixers utilise specialised rotor/stator technology to generate extremely high shear rates, creating a powerful suction effect that continuously draws materials into the high shear workhead. Whereas the conventional agitator continually moved the unhydrated pectin around in the vessel, during the high shear mixer trials the powders were drawn straight into the high shear workhead, where they were subjected to intense high shear. This achieved full dispersion and rapid hydration of the pectin before agglomerates could form, achieving the full yield of thickening effect.
In the trials carried out, 5% of pectin was quickly incorporated and, after a short recirculation period, hydration was complete. The customer was able to achieve the results they wanted with no need to add excess amounts of powder. Incorporating 5% pectin quickly and effectively meant a 20% reduction in pectin compared to their previous process with the agitator. The cost implications of this were huge, so much so that the high shear mixer would pay for itself many times over with the savings made on the raw material. In addition, further money would be saved due to the shorter processing time and lesser energy consumption. And because the high shear mixer eliminated the problems with partially hydrated pectin in the vessel this also greatly improved process hygiene.
Investing in new mixing equipment may not be feasible for some businesses, but even small improvements in processing consistency can deliver significant cumulative savings over time. Identifying where product waste can be reduced or repurposed, the yield of raw ingredients can be improved, or batch times and running costs reduced are just some of the ways food and beverage manufacturers can help to protect profit margins without having to take the more drastic approach in reformulating their product.
Silverson Machines provides a range of mixing equipment designed to help food manufacturers optimise their processing efficiency. These include high shear laboratory-scale, in-tank, in-line and powder/liquid models. To find out more about the full range of Silverson mixers go to www.silverson.co.uk