January and the start of a new year often leads to people making healthy resolutions to improve their eating and drinking habits. This may mean ‘Dry January’ or ‘Veganuary’ for some, or simply an intention to eating better and exercising more.

We are all aware that too much fat and salt in our diets can harm our health, and salt reduction has been a feature of UK food policy for two decades and is accepted globally as a cost-effective strategy to improve public health.

At DC Norris, we have certainly noticed in the past few years that food manufacturers are placing more importance on the nutritional value of the meals and foods that they are producing.  There are many more ranges available such as low-calorie, vegan, vegetarian, plant-based and ‘free from’, and we have had to adapt our processes to allow for these.

Working with Sainsbury’s to remove 70% in fat and 50% in salt in their Italian Range

We began working with a group of Companies including Sainsbury’s back in 2017, when we received an £1m Innovate UK government grant to develop a system or process to reduce the fat and salt in ready meals, sauces and soups.

For two years we undertook product and process trials on Sainsbury’s recipes, using many ingredients such as starches, pre-made roux, cream and full fat milk.   It was proven that the Generation 4 Jet Processing unit could produce a healthier product whilst also matching the taste and texture of the existing full fat and salt products.  As an additional benefit the Jet Processing System reduces the processing time from 60 minutes to less than 15 minutes,

“Jet Process could remove the equivalent of 23 London double decker buses of fat and salt from Sainsbury’s Italian sauces and soups in 12 months!” 

This multi-functional simultaneous process creates droplets of fat and water to sub 1 micron levels, and has resulted in DCN being able to

remove the equivalent of 23 London double decker buses of fat and salt from Sainsbury’s Italian sauces and soups in 12 months.  A 70% reduction in fat and 50% reduction in salt has been proven and documented by both Nottingham University and Sainsbury’s UK.

Vegan / Plant-based / Free-from Ranges

DC Norris has also been working with customers to overcome some of the challenges that they have seen when producing these new types of convenience foods. One of these issues is long processing times which can damage sensitive ingredients if using a traditional Steam Jacketed 

Kettle.  There are also challenges when you remove standard key ingredients, for example dairy, flour and eggs.   Ingredient replacements such as soya, whey proteins and vegetarian cheese are very sensitive to heat and excess agitation which can damage the product taste, structure and appearance.

DCN put their experience into practice when working with Dragon’s Den’s Kirsty Henshaw who launched a new factory which only creates ‘free from’ products.  She enlisted the help of DCN’s Product and Process Team to convert her recipes from traditional jacketed processing methods to Jet Cook.

If you would like to speak to our experienced Product and Process Team about your recipes and product range and how we can help, please get in touch – info@dcnorris.com

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DCN’s Jet Process Systems for Condensed Milk continue to be popular due to the high-speed processing, small footprint and large throughputs.  Food Manufacturers can also expect to see a dramatic energy reduction compared to when using a traditional processing method.

By replacing liquid milk with milk powder, we remove the expense and need for chilled transport and storage.  If using liquid milk, it may have come from a variety of different sources, which then require a lengthy stage to pre-prepare the milk.  There is also a high degree of wastage as when you heat and evaporate liquid, you are losing 60% of the quantity.

Here we examine Jet Process in more detail:

Reduced Processing Times

A Jet Process System we designed, manufactured, and installed earlier this year in Kuala Lumpur can produce quantities of 5000kg in 23 minutes. Throughputs can be increased up to 12 tonnes per hour, with the addition of multiple Jet Cook Units – however the small footprint remains the same.

The lengthy multi-stage processing of the traditional method is replaced with a single-stage system with a small footprint.  In the comparison below, step 1 in traditional processing takes 1 day, whereas with Jet Process this milk preparation stage is removed completely and the whole process takes just 23 minutes.

Watch the video

Improved Product Quality

Product quality is improved when using DCN’s system, as ingredient flavours are enhanced due to the reduced thermal impact of rapid heating and mixing.

Product trials which we ran after the commissioning of the new system showed the Condensed Milk had a brix of 72, and a particle size of 3 micron, ensuring a smooth creamy texture with highlighted dairy notes. The simultaneous heating, shearing of the oil, powders and sugar creates a homogeneous finish without the requirement of a high pressure mechanical homogeniser.

Traditional Condensed Milk Process (liquid milk)

Testing and adjusting the incoming liquid milk prior to processing:
Fat levels
Solids Non-fat
Micro-loading

Pasteurisation through heat exchanger to 120◦C for 1-3 minutes or:
Chilling to 70◦C before entering the evaporator
Mechanical homogenising
Cooling prior to canning

Typical Condensed Milk Jet Process System (milk powder)

Cook/Sterilisation/Entrain/Emulsify are all carried out simultaneously as one step:

Jet Cook – single or multi in-line (up to 4 units) – simultaneously and rapidly heat and shear the product to the final required temperature.

Jet Sterilisation – replaces a traditional heat exchanger, which can cause damage to the proteins due to the hot surface. The excess surface temperature can also cause a maillard effect, where lactose reacts with ε-amino group of lysine residue of milk proteins.  This can have a negative impact on the flavour and colour of the product. The other disadvantage of a heat exchanger is long cleaning times of the tubes, and the volume of product left inside them after processing.  The Jet Sterilisation pipework can be as little as two metres with no moving parts, and can be disassembled in a matter of minutes.

Jet Entrain – entrains 400kgs of powder in 4 minutes. The patented hopper and injector nozzle creates ultimate vacuum to disperse the powders into the liquid without any blockages, which can occur if there is wetting of the powder.

Non-mechanical In-Line Emulsification – using the In-line Jet Cooks on high shear whilst they also rapidly heat.

Lactose Seeding – not usually required with this system but can be added by customer request – as was the case with this customer.

The same system has the flexibility to make different products such as oat milk, evaporated milk, milkshakes, long shelf-life juices, sugar syrups, creamer, as well as maheu and brushera for the African markets.

To find out more about DCN’s Jet Process Condensed Milk systems, please contact info@dcnorris.com / +44 (0) 1767 677515

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This week we celebrate the 24th Annual Curry Week which takes place from the 3rd – 9th October 2022. It has been a difficult year but for one week only, lets talk about curry instead of Coronavirus!

Since the 1970’s curry has become a staple in ready meal consumption, with millions consumed every single week!

Butter Chicken Curry or Murgh Makhani as its also known is one of the most widely produced Punjabi curries in the world. It is a thick, rich and mildly spiced product which comes with similar production challenges wherever it is produced. These being burn-on contamination, separation of dairy fats, long production times and the presence of coloured fat spots upon cooling.

Food producers use our DCN Jet Cook unit, Braising Bar technology and Recipe Manager to ensure all the spices are crackled properly. Fats/dairy products are adequately emulsified to form a stable emulsion and the spices are distributed evenly throughout the product.

The Braising Bar is used to give an even cook-out of all the spices, the motion/movement of the bar replicates that of a chef, but is controlled with DCN Recipe Manager which also controls the heat, agitation, mixing and cooking time of the spices.

Liquids such as yoghurt cream, and water are added, the Jet Cook unit is used to simultaneously heat and mix.

This process evenly distributes the dairy fats and forms much smaller droplet sizes than traditional methods, thus ensuring the fats and spices do not separate during cooking and after cooling. As the Steam Jacket is not used in this stage of production there is zero burn-on contamination .

The rapid heating with no moving parts also ensures that particulates such as onion, tomatoes, peppers, and coriander remain both intact and maintain their colour and nutritional values.

“The finished curry was restaurant quality, but cooked at incredible speed.”
Mr Sankarnathan

CEO Leading Restaurant Group – Singapore

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DC Norris; manufacturers of world leading industrial food processing equipment, announced today the appointment of Found Four as their new Japanese Agents.

Based in Yokohama, Found Four contribute to the creation of a healthy and safe society in Japan by importing products and systems from world-leading suppliers that do not exist in the country. They provide services that are one-step ahead of expectations by anticipating customers’ needs and provide impressive work that is appreciated by their customers.

Found Four. Co., Ltd. has many years of experience as a distributor connecting Japanese customers with suppliers of excellent technologies that are little known in Japan and will actively introduce DC Norris’ advantageous technologies to Japanese customers. As part of this effort, the two companies plan to jointly exhibit at FOOMA JAPAN in 2023.

David Norris, Managing Director commented, “DC Norris has a global presence, and we rely on our strong partnerships with overseas agents to represent the Company and support our far-flung customers. We are delighted to have added Found Four to our portfolio and look forward to a long and mutually successful partnership.”

https://found-four.co.jp/home/ 

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