The facility is designed to support complex ingredient formulations in the application of dairy, beverages and soups.
The new UHT laboratory includes equipment that allows IMCD to work with its customers to run trials and develop formulations together. This provides greater flexibility for customers to innovate without having to interrupt their daily operations.
The facility can manage a range of viscosity from beverages to sauces and soups and is equipped with an external chiller, allowing cold filling temperature down to 20 degrees Celsius. It has an enclosed homogenizing system for both upstream and downstream processing and it is equipped with multi sample preparation batch allowing for different formulations to be prepared simultaneously.
“A key focus is the retention of nutrients in the product under high temperature processing,” Koh Wanlin, regional technical manager, IMCD Food & Nutrition APAC, said.
Besides customer trials, the technical team will also concentrate on concepts of shelf stable dairy and dairy-alternative beverages. The concept application will be later extended to savory products such as soups and sauces that can be kept at room temperature for an extended period.
“With more than 29% of consumers globally viewing health aspects as an important factor when purchasing food and beverage, dairy and beverages have become one of the key categories in the development of health & wellness related products in APAC,” said Emmanuel Colette, regional business director, IMCD Food & Nutrition APAC.
“With IMCD’s new UHT pilot facility, our customers have now access to a unique support from our technical team to speed-up their innovative developments and shorten their route-to-market with a collaborative agile approach.”