Sterile mixing equipment for infant formula and baby food manufacturing
Baby food as we know it today dates back to 1865 when Justus von Liebig, founder of organic chemistry, developed a nutritious soup especially for infants. A few years later, Henri Nestlé combined Liebig’s recipe with dehydrated milk, bringing the powdered formula to market in 1868.
Today, infant formula and baby food are crucial to the nutritional health of children in industrial as well as developing nations. Few food products carry such a tremendous responsibility. Mixing equipment for infant formula must be up for this challenging and precious task: creating perfectly pure and homogenous mixtures of delicate components.
The majority of nutrients were previously liquefied and dried into powder in the spray tower. Thermally sensitive vitamins and prebiotics are added in the final powder mixing process. The final mixer is extremely important with regard to the issues:
- Mixing quality
- Protection of the particle structure
- Preservation of the instant properties
- Hygiene; microbiological controllability
- Flexibility with regard to batch sizes
- alternative: continuous mixing in the amixon® AMK mixer
Tests in the pilot plant desired?
If a mixing plant can automatically discharge all mixed material completely, then sources of contamination are reliably avoided.
The challenges of infant formula manufacturing
As with pharmaceutical products, the manufacture of infant formula and baby food is subject to incredibly strict safety, hygiene, and nutritional regulations – and for good reason! Because newborns have yet to develop a gut biome, it is crucial that infant formula is especially pure and carefully tailored to the nutritional needs of growing babies.
Among the most critical aspects in the production of infant formula is ensuring the correct dosage of individual ingredients, as too little or too much of certain ingredients can threaten the wellbeing of the child. Microscopic particles such as probiotics, minerals, and trace elements like zinc, copper, selenium, and chromium must be precisely and evenly blended in with the bulk powders prior to packaging.
Furthermore, the mixing machines in which baby food is processed must be capable of operating with minimal energy input in order to maintain the delicate structure of these particles. Mixing infant formula is a challenging task, as the resulting mixture must be dust-free, uniformly sinkable and soluble, and homogenously blended.
Mixing equipment for infant formula and baby food production
amixon®produces customized mixing equipment that creates perfectly homogenous blends at filling levels ranging from 5 to 100 percent, ensuring uniformity from batch to batch. Our high-performance powder processing machines are especially gentle, capable of retaining particle structure, achieving excellent sinkability and solubility, and eliminating the creation of dust within the mixture.
Because the mixing machines are designed completely free of dead-space, a three-dimensional flow can gently yet completely homogenize the goods in as little as 70 to 200 rotations. Equipped with innovative mechanisms that achieve up to 99.997% discharge, cleaning your mixer between batches is easy. Furthermore, the ergonomic Clever-Cut® inspection doors grant full access to the mixing chamber.
All of our mixing equipment is hygienically designed according to EHEDG, GMP, and FDA standards, facilitating the health and safety certification process for your infant formula or baby food production facilities.
And with global testing centers located in Europe, North America, and throughout Asia, our processing and validation experts are always on-hand to help you ensure the highest performance and quality standards with your baby food mixer. Together we can develop a customized mixing machine for infant formula or baby food that will perform to your exact processing and batch requirements and fit seamlessly into your production line.
amixon® mixers for powdered baby food and infant formula
Vertical Twin Shaft Mixer HM
With two conjoined mixing vessels, each outfitted with a helical mixing blade, the Twin-Shaft Mixer HM makes it possible to gently and precisely blend ingredients of varying sizes and shapes in record time.
The dual mixing shafts rotate simultaneously, generating a powerful three-dimensional current within the dry ingredients. In as few as 20 to 90 rotations, the contents of the vessel have achieved a homogeneity that is virtually impossible to improve.
Continuous Powder Mixer AMK
Efficient and reliable bulk ingredient processing is made possible by the amixon®Continuous Powder Mixer AMK. Using gravimetric dosing, unmixed bulk goods flow into the mixer while homogenized goods flow out.
This time- and resource-saving continuous mixer is ideal for conditioning the bulk ingredients in infant formula and baby food while continuously adding the exact amount of microscopic probiotics, vitamins, and minerals.
KoneSlid® Precision Mixer KS
In order to ensure that microscopic particles such as probiotics, vitamins, and minerals are evenly distributed throughout a batch of infant formula, there is no better equipment than the Precision Mixer KS.
Uniform dosage can be guaranteed, as well as an extremely gentle conveyance that requires minimal energy input. The innovative design of the mixing vessel, a cone-shape with an inverted tip, makes for quick and complete discharging as well as incredibly fast cleaning.