Using NDC to perfect moisture, oil, and brownness in savoury snacks

NDC recently posted a white paper on optimizing quality in savoury snacks.

Firing Industries is Canada’s premier source of processing equipment for the food sector, including analytical devices by NDC Technologies. NDC manufactures equipment that helps food-processing companies measure the amounts of moisture, oil, and other factors in products to perfect flavour and freshness. A recent white paper by the manufacturer, published in New Food magazine, discusses better ways to measure moisture, oil, and degree of brownness in savoury snacks.

Taste, texture, and appearance

According to NDC, success in the snack-food industry is dependent on the taste, texture, and appearance of the product. So the testing of savoury snacks for these key quality attributes during the manufacturing process is vital to ensure product consistency and freshness. A particular concern in the potato-chip market is minimization of acrylamide formation; manufacturers now understand that an essential strategy for mitigating that risk is accurate cooking control with good moisture measurement.

With traditional analytical technologies for measuring moisture, oil, and brownness in quality-control labs, workers get accurate measurements at snapshot time intervals, and the process of testing a small sample, even a few grams, can take many minutes or even hours. This often results in very poor verification of ongoing process control and inefficient operations. The process is also expensive to maintain, and chemicals are required, which need to be thrown out afterwards.

For a better way, Firing Industries offers NDC’s MM710e Near-Infrared gauge and InfraLab at-process analyzer. The MM710e gives on-line measurements of moisture, oil, and degree of brownness in real time, generating constant, very accurate and representative data on the total snack production, which enables better process control and optimization.

The InfraLab is the right choice for processes in which on-line gauging is not practical. This analyzer is an effective alternative that offers at-line measurement on representative large grab samples in only five seconds. No special skill is required to operate the InfraLab, which offers process vision superior to that from conventional testing.

Energy savings, higher productivity, and operational efficiency: these are the benefits of using NDC solutions for savoury snacks.

To learn more, contact Firing Industries’ application-sales engineers at ddubuc@firing.com or (877) 688-0974.

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