The food and beverage industry faces many challenges in R&D, predominantly in ensuring product quality, safety, and stability in distinct environmental conditions and production scales.
Image Credit: Yokogawa Fluence Analytics
These challenges include managing ingredient behavior under processing stress and ensuring batch-to-batch consistency. Analytical tools like ARGEN, initially developed for pharmaceuticals, show promise in addressing R&D challenges in the food and beverage industry.
R&D concerns in the food and beverage industry
A principal concern in the food and beverage industry is the integrity of product quality and stability, despite natural inconsistencies in production and environmental conditions.
Issues such as dissolved oxygen in drinks can significantly impact stability and taste, requiring evaluative tools to observe and regulate formulations throughout processing.
Another key demand is handling the solubility and rehydration of powdered ingredients like milk protein concentrates (MPC). Studies have shown the challenges of rehydrating MPC powders by monitoring particle dissolution kinetics and volume concentration.
These critical insights influence the powder’s functionality in food formulations, impacting emulsification, foaming, and gelling. ARGEN’s unique features successfully address these food and beverage industry demands.
Real-time stability and stress monitoring
ARGEN monitors real-time stability, a feature that can be customized to observe ingredient stability under diverse processing environments. It provides the instant feedback necessary for swift adjustments to guarantee reliable quality.
During processing, chemical, mechanical, and thermal stress can change ingredient functionality and stability. ARGEN simulates these stress conditions, creating robust formulations that maintain quality from lab to production scale.
ARGEN simultaneously analyzes multiple samples under various conditions, which is critical for rapidly and effectively optimizing formulations and processing parameters. This is especially valuable for screening how diverse conditions impact ingredient solubility and stability.
ARGEN applications in food and beverage R&D
ARGEN enhances pasteurization processes in dairy and juice products to maintain nutritional and sensory properties. It also improves the functional benefits of proteins like casein and whey in nutritional products by examining and optimizing their solubility under different conditions.
This powerful technological innovation in the food and beverage sector allows businesses to effectively tackle fundamental product development challenges.
Food scientists can utilize pharmaceutical-grade investigative methods to achieve unprecedented control over product quality and innovation, creating safer, more stable, and higher-quality foods for consumers.
Integrating innovative tools like ARGEN to understand and improve processes, such as the rehydration of MPC powders, is key to advancing food science.
About Yokogawa Fluence Analytics
Yokogawa Fluence Analytics, which was named as a Top 50 global advanced manufacturing startup by CB Insights, provides patented process analytics and control solutions to polymer and biopharmaceutical customers worldwide. Yokogawa Electric Corporation acquired Fluence Analytics in January 2023.
Yokogawa Fluence Analytics is a global leader in real-time polymer reaction monitoring and control, and its industry-leading ACOMP product is the only commercially available smart manufacturing system that continuously monitors and measures polymerization reactions.
The company’s biopharmaceutical product line includes a high-throughput static light scattering instrument called ARGEN. ARGEN can independently measure the stability of biopolymers under thermal, chemical, and mechanical (physical) stress, while also performing shelf-life stability studies at low temperatures.
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