Recipient Organization
SINNOVATEK, INC.
2609 DISCOVERY DR - STE 115
RALEIGH,NC 27616
Performing Department
Research and Development
Non Technical Summary
The food industry is changing as traditional business models increasingly shift toward socially good enterprises with a need for transparency, ingenuity, and agility. This shift demands innovative products that satisfy multi-faceted goals that employ improved nutritional content, sustainable agricultural practices, supply chain flexibility, and accountability for food waste. This demand creates an opportunity for novel processing systems. A portable, small-scale, advanced thermal food processing system is an ideal solution, providing a versatile technology that can address the changing market needs relating to scale, flexibility, yield, cost, and rate of innovation. Advanced thermal processing using an electrical heating source, such as microwave or induction, is a necessary component of small-scale systems because it can yield a high product quality when compared to traditional thermal processing and can make use of portable and/or renewable electric energy sources. In order to produce safe and shelf stable food products, a thermal treatment is used to kill pathogens and spoilage microorganisms, as defined by reaching a specific minimum temperature for a specific minimum time (hold time and temperature). Traditional thermal processing technologies require a prolonged come up time (i.e. to reach critical processing conditions), or the time to get to the hold temperature, resulting in degradation of nutrients, flavor, color, and texture. Alternatively, advanced thermal technologies have the ability to minimize the come up time and therefore retain product quality, while still achieving the hold times and temperatures as needed for food safety and stability. SinnovaTek has unparalleled access and experience with two advanced thermal processing technologies, namely, continuous flow microwave (through years of commercialization and development) and continuous flow induction (through its partnership with Induction Food Systems). Currently, data to demonstrate which processing technology is best suited for a small-scale portable processing system does not exist. SinnovaTek has a fully functional small-scale microwave thermal processing development platform and has completed a demonstration unit for an induction system. This project will include modification of the induction system to become interchangeable with the microwave system in the development platform for the purpose of gathering this data. Comparative studies will elucidate the differences in the modular technologies with the remainder of the development platform remaining identical. The thermal process systems will be tested and compared across four diverse foods (applesauce, blueberry puree, sweet potato puree, and milk), selected for their challenging viscosities and thermally sensitive nutrients or colors. Both heating systems will be tested with each food for stability, energy efficiency, thermally sensitive nutrient retention, color degradation, sensory degradation, yield loss, and pipe fouling. A small-scale development platform will go through an initial upfit to add a modular thermal process system, integrating both induction and microwave for the purpose of comparitive testing. The goal of the platform and of Phase I will be to conduct experiments and to collect data toward making an informed decision of which technology is a better fit for a portable small-scale processing system. The metrics used to make this comparison will include product quality, economic considerations, and system robustness according to the following attributes:The rapid come up time will result in a high product quality:High nutrient retentionLimited product fouling (short time at high temperatures results in less protein denaturation)Retention of natural color, flavor, and textureThe system uses electricity instead of boilers relying on natural gas, resulting in:Ability to use renewable energyResilience in isolated areas when powered with renewable energyThe system should be economically viable including the following operational efficiencies:A compact footprintReduced or eliminated need for a boilerImproved energy efficiencyYield improvementsFewer cleaning cycles and longer production uptime from reduced pipe foulingThe future of small-scale, portable, food processing systems allows new small business to grow and innovate with less risk. The portable units could be rented and moved with the seasonality of agriculture to increase food security. Processed foods have a longer shelf life, thus reducing food waste and supply chain inefficiencies. Small farming collectives or commercial kitchens could manufacture for test market production on systems that would easily scale to traditional co-packing or full-scale manufacturing arrangements. In addition, the foods are safely produced, nutritious, and retain many of their natural qualities, which are able to be retained through less thermal processing.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
30%
Developmental
70%
Goals / Objectives
The proposed portable processing system is designed to provide a small-scale, affordable processing technology to manufacturers and growers that allows them to process products near or at the source to maximize revenues and crop yields while minimizing losses in the form of food waste. Portable processing benefits the seasonality of agriculture. Similarly, this technology will benefit small food companies, entrepreneurs, and incubators/accelerators/commercial processing kitchens/industrial co-packers where a small scale, reduced cost platform could help reduce the barriers to entry into the processed products market. The goal of Phase I is to determine the best available electric heating technology by comparing microwave technology against induction technology for a portable processing system. The two technologies will be compared based on their process capability, performance, and economic viability. Phase I will focus on the upfit of a small scale development platform to contain a removable thermal process system. The interchangeable thermal process system can either be microwave or induction technology. Each platform will be used to execute a series of processing tests, which will allow for the quantification and/or qualification of critical process factors, energy efficiency, fouling, yield loss, color, organoleptic comments (flavor and texture), and nutrient retention, across four types of food products, namely milk, sweet potato puree, applesauce, and blueberry puree. These categories were selected as they represent food products with different commonly known technical hurdles. Milk has a flavor profile which is easily affected by thermal processing and contains proteins which denature at elevated temperatures. By selecting temperature-sensitive food materials, the experiment will select for a gentle thermal process. Sweet potato puree will challenge the system with a high viscosity which causes higher system pressures and a starchy product that can stick to heating surfaces, causing fouling and putting stress on pumps. Blueberry puree has a thermal sensitivity with respect to color integrity and nutrient degradation. Applesauce is a general baseline product which, in the past, has been studied under a variety of microwave and induction designs during development. Both, blueberry puree and applesauce, contain macromolecules and particles such as fibers and pulp which can act as physical restrictions impacting process performance. Studying a combination of product stress and system stress will result in a better understanding of a flexible design to conduct the comparative testing.Objectives:To modify an existing small scale microwave processing line by creating an interchangeable induction heating component.To compare nutritional content from microwave and induction technologies using analytical results from testing antioxidants (vitamin C, phenolics, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, and carotenoids) across two applicable food matrices (blueberry and sweet potato purees).To compare quality parameters from microwave and induction technologies using Hunter color testing and general flavor and texture observations of four food matrices, blueberry puree, applesauce, milk and sweet potato puree.To use knowledge from processing characteristics and equipment to create a chart of benefits and hurdles of each technology, when compared against each other. The designs are evaluated for scalability, footprint, and portability.To physically break down and inspect the process line after processing foods which are sensitive to fouling by burning, creating films or blocking process piping.To measure energy efficiency by calculating the mass flow rate, specific heat and temperature rise, and dividing by the theoretical values. To quantify the yield loss of each technology across the four products by weighing loss during the period of purging the system of water and filling the line with the food product. To use knowledge from processing characteristics and equipment to create a preliminary marketing package detailing general specification and cost ranges. The package will be used for furthering business development. The cost is detailed in a capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) report for the general design.
Project Methods
The goal of the project is to select the best possible advanced thermal processing technology for the small-scale portable processing system by comparing the results of a broad range of processing tests for attributes including system robustness, product quality, and economic competitiveness. To do this, SinnovaTek will employ its current small-scale development platform, which contains a functional, tested, and commercialized continuous flow microwave system. This system will be retrofitted with an interchangeable, modular induction unit, such that either microwave or induction processing technologies could be used with minimal other changes to the line. This will produce a robust data set, wherein system variables that are not tied to the thermal technologies themselves are eliminated. System UpfitThe acceptability of the induction upfit will be evaluated using typical industrial methods for a factory acceptance test (FAT) to ensure that the design is sufficient to construct a proper test between the thermal processing technologies. The following parameters will be considered a passing result in order to move into the comparison testing.Water held at the following metrics:flow rate of 0.75 lpm +/- 0.3 lpmtemperature rise from 20C to 145Cmaintain the temperature delta within a window of +/- 5Cmaintain pressures below 300 psi All for a time frame of >30 minutesComparison TestingThe second effort will form a comprehensive data set in order to compare the microwave system to the induction system and to feed into the feasibility analysis. Four food products (applesauce, blueberry puree, sweet potato and milk) have been selected as the standards by which the systems will be compared. The food products represent a diverse range of nutritional, sensory, processing and system flexibility challenges. Each food product will be run through the platform in each of the microwave and induction configurations in duplicate and will undergo the following analyses.Product Quality:Nutritional performance will be quantified by testing for thermally sensitive antioxidants. Data will be evaluated in triplicate and will undergo statistical analysis using a Tukey test (p0.05) and reported as mean ± standard error of the mean. Blueberry puree will be tested for Vitamin C, phenolics, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins. Sweet potato puree will be tested for Vitamin C, phenolics and carotenoids. The methodologies used will be:Vitamin C - HPLCPhenolics - Folin CiocalteuAnthocyanins - HPLCProanthocyanidins - HPLCCarotenoids - HPLCSensory performance will be evaluated by the SinnovaTek in-house staff for flavor, texture, and aroma by quantifying a degree of magnitude change. Milk has an industry-specific tasting process set by the American Dairy Science Association which will be used for scoring the off flavors in milk.Color will be quantified using a Minolta colorimeter in triplicate, on the Hunter L* a* b* scale. The color difference between samples processed on the two different processing technologies will be calculated as a Delta E value to quantify any differences that would be visible to a human eye.Processing Performance:Energy consumption will be measured for each test by recording the output of the power supply.Energy efficiency will be calculated using the standard energy equation. The mass flow rate (as measured by the flow meter), specific heat of the food product, and temperature rise (as measured by RTDs) will be recorded for this calculation.The process line will be taken apart and inspected for fouling. Reduced fouling could result in actions such as longer production runs with reduced cleaning cycles. Yield loss will be evaluated by weight. Yield loss quantification aids in comparisons against traditional systems due to a 90% reduction in process piping.Economics:The capital expense (CapEx) will be estimated based on budgetary costs for the required components of each processing system. The core components of either Microwave or Induction will be compared, along with their required supporting systems, to determine the best fit.The operating expenses (OpEx) will be calculated to include kW of energy used, (to be standardized based on temperature rise and flow rate), assumptions for utility costs, yield estimations, and budgetary costs on system maintenance.Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the system will be modeled to determine the total cost over the life expectancy of the equipment to ensure that we've properly captured and accounted for fixed vs recurring costs.By collecting each of these data points, a picture will emerge of the benefits and drawbacks of each processing technology. This will feed into a feasibility analysis that is designed to choose the processing technology with the best potential for commercial success for application in the portable processing system.