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Tetra Pak Filtration Solutions: New ways of utilizing membrane filtration in milk preparation
The tradition of milk preparation has always been focused on controlling the fat content by centrifugal separation and standardization by blending.
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Over the years, membrane filtration has found its way into milk preparation because it adds the possibility to control other parameters than fat. Today, it is therefore an essential part of milk, yogurt, cheese, and ingredient production in the dairy industry. Two new trends of utilizing membrane filtration in milk preparation are described here. A new trend in chilled milk preparation is standardization of total solids to control the seasonal variation. Some regions in the world have high variation in the total solid and milk composition over the seasons. Therefore, we see more and more demand for RO concentration in the preparation of chilled milk. Standardization of total solid is often prohibited by legal demands, so it is important to make sure that local demands are met.
RO is also a good technology to protect consumers, as it maintains the ratio of all nutrients in the milk by only removing water. The volume is reduced which leads to the need of more than 1 liter of raw milk to produce 1 liter of chilled milk. This increases the cost of production and therefore RO standardized milk is normally branded as premium.
Another trend that has been introduced lately is to use membrane filtration in combination with chromatography. In this process, high value-added ingredients such as lactoferrin are extracted before further preparation of the milk base for traditional dairy products. In the lactoferrin production the milk is passed through a resin designed to capture the lactoferrin. Afterwards, the milk can be utilized as a base for e.g. MPC production. The lactoferrin is released from the resin in an eluation step and purified in several membrane filtration steps before drying.
TETRA PAK FILTRATION SOLUTIONS
Taste the difference – innovate your future.
Want to create new foods and beverages – and increase raw material yield on the way? Or enhance product quality and be more eco-friendly? Membrane filtration lets you do all this and much else. Tetra Pak’s marketleading membrane filtration systems operate efficiently in hundreds of plants worldwide. Get in touch and we’ll tell you more.
