Munson Machinery has supplied a rotary batch mixer to Systemic Formulas, reportedly cutting the manufacturer’s mixing and cleaning time by 80%.
The manufacturer of herbal blends and powdered vitamins sells directly to nutritional consultants and other healthcare professionals. It company offers capsules, powders, liquids, and sachet daily-dose packaging.
As its product line has grown, the company has streamlined production to meet demand, replacing its paddle mixer with a rotary batch mixer.
Products are batched according to recipes containing between 15 to 60 raw materials, including vitamins, minerals, enzymes, RNA/DNA tissue factors, amino acids, and botanicals. With products for adrenal health to macular degeneration and weight management supplements, the company’s production process must provide both flexibility and accuracy, it says.
Materials are reduced to the desired particle size in a hammer mill, transported in 194 litre lined food-handling containers, and then gravity fed into the rotary batch mixer, a 1132 litre model 700-TS-40-SS from Munson Machinery.
Batches run as small as 45 kg and as large as 521 kg, with the average batch weighing 400 kg to yield 800,000 half-gram capsules which are packaged into bottles.
The batch is reportedly blended in 4 to 6 minutes, versus 20 minutes for the paddle mixer. "No matter the particle size, it does not under- or over-mix, providing the uniform consistency we need,” said Spencer Hansen, Production Manager.
The mixer’s internal mixing flights impart a four-way mixing action that tumbles, folds, cuts and turns the material gently, without the shear of agitated machines.
To add liquids, an optional pressure pot with an internal atomiser sprays a mist of hemp, wintergreen, grapeseed and other oils onto a moving bed of material for rapid and uniform distribution.
Between each batch, the mixer is prewashed, soaped down and rinsed. A second soap cycle is run with agitation balls and dried with clean rags or towels, before the unit is rescrubbed, rinsed, sanitised and air dried, after which it is wiped down with alcohol, ready for the next batch.
“Cleaning took 2.5 to 3 hours with our old mixer.” said Hansen. “With the Rotary Batch Mixer, we pared cleaning cycle time down to 30 minutes. The large discharge gate and multiple doors give us easy access for final wipe-down cleaning.”
