Handling ingredients with high fat content used in mixes and blends requires appropriate environmental controls and special handling. High temperatures or excessive conveyance speeds tend to heat fat, which separates and smears. Without proper storage temperature, conveyance methods, and flow speed controls, high fat powders can build up and clog equipment around pipe bends or receivers. The ideal automated bulk handling system incorporates features that reduce the chance of fat separation and includes easy-to-clean designs in case they do.
Mixes & Blends Attributes
Toxicity
Low
High
Abrasiveness
soft
hard
Friable
Solid
delicate
Combustible
Low
High
Flowability
free-flowing
poor
Hygroscopic
not
high
Bulk Density (lb/CF)
light
heavy
particle Size
Coarse
fine
Mixes and Blends Handling: Overview
Using mixes and blends as ingredients to produce snacks, candy confectionery, or baking mixes and blends, requires several considerations to ensure the mix remains blended through production and packaging processes. The key to their effective bulk handling is in the engineering and design of an automated bulk process solution. The system must accommodate the unique characteristics of each mix or blend to prevent it from separating into its component parts. Dry bulk handling systems must also maintain batch control, preserve hygienic conditions, and mitigate dust. Regardless of the recipe, AZO’s design and engineering team will deliver the dry bulk ingredient handling solution that safeguards product purity and consistency.
Mixes and Blends Handling: Common Challenges
Processors handling mixes and blends must prevent fat separation to avoid equipment clogs.
Processors handling mixes and blends must prevent fat separation to avoid equipment clogs.
Food manufacturers using mixes and blends as ingredients must meet hygiene and food safety requirements.
Food manufacturers using mixes and blends as ingredients must meet hygiene and food safety requirements.
Product safety is a critical concern for food manufacturers when producing mixes or blends as ingredients, as contamination can not only affect quality, but also pose risks to consumers. Storing, dosing, weighing, or conveying the bulk dry ingredients used in mixes or blends is only the first step. Processors of mixes and blends must also employ proper hygienic handling practices from the mixer to the packaging lines. Regular sanitation steps — such as wipe downs — are required to eliminate cross-contamination risks, verify cleanliness, and prevent allergen cross-contact.
The different properties of ingredients used in mixes and blends require different bulk ingredient handling approaches.
The different properties of ingredients used in mixes and blends require different bulk ingredient handling approaches.
The proteins, fat, and sugars associated with mixes and blends all behave differently when moving through a bulk material handling system. To ensure high quality products, ingredients need to arrive at the mixer fully intact and complete. The design of the automated bulk handling equipment used in the system must account for these complicated ingredients to ensure reliability and consistent product quality.
Certain mixes and blends ingredients require a properly conditioned environment.
Certain mixes and blends ingredients require a properly conditioned environment.
Some ingredients and additives used in mixes and blends and baking materials — such as sugar or milk powders — are hygroscopic. Because they will readily absorb moisture, they are prone to clumping and resist flow. Proper environmental controls, such as dehumidifiers, are necessary to prevent clumping, sticking, caking, or forming of bridges in storage bins. Providing the necessary equipment to control the environment around all bulk ingredients is critical to optimize safe and reliable bulk flow.
Handling mixes and blends requires proactive dust mitigation.
Handling mixes and blends requires proactive dust mitigation.
The high volumes of dust generated by mixes and blends are prone to ignition and a source of pest infestation. Explosion protection requires either suppression or venting to the outside the facility. Fugitive dust in a food plant is also an open invitation to unwanted pests. This is an especially troublesome problem in hard to reach or hidden areas. Every bulk ingredient handling system must incorporate explosion protection and dust mitigation equipment to safeguard a mixes and blends operation and its customers.
Bulk ingredient handling requires space for explosion protection.
Bulk ingredient handling requires space for explosion protection.
Any bulk ingredient handling operation must ensure adequate space for the installation of explosion protection and dust mitigation equipment. This may require some creativity in design and installation to ensure that necessary protection can fit into the available square footage — or be located in proximity to an exterior wall or roof — for venting. This can be especially challenging when adding explosion protection in an existing manufacturing plant.