Danone and NIZO: cost reduction of 40%
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The best way to give your baby a good start is by giving it mother’s milk. This is the reason why companies that produce infant food want their products to resemble mother’s milk as much as possible. “At Danone,” Gert Hols, R&D Director Immunity & Allergy at Danone Research, remarks, “we take mother’s milk as the starting point, the gold standard devised by Mother Nature”. In the processing of infant food, food safety and nutritional value are key issues. Numico, which is currently part of Danone, had fouling problems with the processing of one of their infant foods, and requested the help of NIZO food research.
40% increase in production
Baby nutrition contains a lot of whey proteins which are sensitive to denaturing when heated. At Danone, this resulted in fouling in the heating equipment during processing, which in turn had a negative effect on the cycle times of the process. Based on the production data available from Danone, NIZO’s experts helped with their advanced models (Premia) and with subsequent validation of the models in NIZO’s food grade pilot facilities to optimize the heating process to prevent fouling. “We were able to increase the cycle time by a factor of 6,” states Peter de Jong, Head of the processing group at NIZO food research, “and thanks to this joint project, the production capacity of this product increased by 40%!”
Profitable collaboration
“For this kind of research, NIZO has one of the finest pilot facilities in the world, very flexible and equipped with a variety of technologies,” says Hols, “and NIZO food research is particularly strong in the modeling of various processes. In short, these are the ingredients for a ‘healthy’ research collaboration.”