Managing the Microbes

You see it all the time, food recalls on produce like lettuce and cantaloupe or even proteins like chicken and beef. This is often the result of bacterial growth somewhere along the supply chain before reaching your local grocery store. Similarly in dairy applications, producers need reliable filters to weed out harmful, disease-causing bacteria from valuable milk product. The more efficient this filtration process, the greater the protection of end-users like children and families perusing the milk aisle.

We do this at our Innovation Center in Silkeborg, Denmark through a process called membrane filtration. With global demand rising for high quality milk, whey and milk-based ingredients, membrane filtration is essential. It improves bacteria removal, personal health and its more sustainable.

Let’s start with the basics:

What is Membrane Filtration?

Membrane filtration is a sustainable technology that preserves temperature, taste and nutritional value. In dairy, several membrane types are used across applications. For milk preservation, we use ceramic membrane filtration systems. That’s when we move 1-meter rods, with narrow flow tunnels inside, throughout a milk product to remove unwanted microorganisms, such as bacterial spores.

This results in a cleaner, smoother milk with Extended Shelf Life (ESL).

As its name implies, ESL does not spoil as quickly as traditional milk. The taste and nutritional components undergo gentle phase changes throughout membrane filtration, protecting and preserving both throughout the process.

In fact, people in various experiments could not identify by taste which product was ESL milk or traditionally, pasteurized milk.

Advantages of our Membrane Filtration Systems:

Our engineers invented, “Bug Away,” a microfiltration processes with an exceptionally high bacterial kill rate that minimizes losses, water usage and energy. Here’s what else we found:

• Removal of all dead cells in filtrated milk
• Preserved freshness
• A broader geographical selling territory, as ESL milk will last longer while being transported to areas without much access to traditional milk.
• Higher quality products with higher margins for grocers

Dairy-based milk or plant-based juice? The choice is yours. Whatever your product line, we have solutions: Microfiltration (MF) - Membrane Filtration Systems. SPX FLOW has perfected our membrane technology to further optimize existing lines and introduce new membrane filtration systems that lock in the good and bind up the not-so-goods.

After all, we are solution makers.