At Food ingredients Europe 2017, the contract manufacturer SternMaid demonstrated its expertise in blending, optimising and filling food ingredients and food supplements in powder form.
The company is in an excellent position to fulfil customer orders of this kind and subsequently fill the powders into a wide range of retail packs.
The focus this year was on the new option of filling products into stand-up pouches. Besides its technical solutions, SternMaid also presented its wide spectrum of services.
Premixes, trial blends or sensitive applications – when it comes to compounding powders, the company has comprehensive know-how and the latest technical equipment at its disposal.
Moreover, the contract manufacturer offers the entire service chain, including purchase of the raw waterials, packaging, warehousing and delivery – all from one source. Customers can either take advantage of the whole package or choose individual modules, according to their needs.
Extended co-packing offer
To respond even more flexibly to customers’ wishes, SternMaid invested in a Doypack line at the beginning of this year.
That means the co-packing service provider can now fill products such as dry beverage bases, superfoods, dietetic drinks in powder form or products for athletes into ready-made stand-up pouches, with or without a zipper, and three- or four-edge seal bags. Besides retail packs, industrial containers such as sacks, fibreboard boxes, drums or FIBCs can be filled, too.
Contract blending
For contract blending, the company has three lines for small and medium-size orders between 100 and 10,000 kg and four other lines for large quantities greater than 10 tonnes.
Allergen-free foods and other sensitive products can be processed on a counter-current container blending line in a separate section of the plant.
Moreover, liquid components can be sprayed onto the powder homogenously on all the lines through special nozzles. Flavourings, oils and emulsifiers and even highly viscous liquids can be dispersed evenly in this way.
Product optimisation in the fluid bed processor
What's more, the company can use fluid bed technology to manufacture products that have excellent tabletting properties, optimal protection against outside influences, good flow properties, precisely defined solubility or very even particle sizes, depending on the customer’s requirements.
For example, powder mixtures can be modified by agglomeration to produce dust-free, optimally portionable products for drink dispensers or capsule machines.
