At this year’s Vitafoods, the contract manufacturer SternMaid (Stand E69) will present its outsourcing expertise and processing services.
The company’s technologies range from blending, drying and processing to a complete package that includes raw material purchasing, co-packing, warehousing and delivery. SternMaid can blend and optimise practically any product in the food or life science industry and package it as requested. State-of-the-art fluid bed technology, for example, makes it possible to adjust and standardize the properties of foods, ingredients and food supplements to meet individual requirements.
From instantisation, dust reduction and solubility to the microencapsulation of active ingredients, fluid bed technology offers an enormous range of possibilities to optimise lifestyle and health products such as dietetic drinks, protein preparations, dry beverage bases and sports nutrition products. As the process can be done at low temperatures, the products are normally only exposed to moderate heat (30–50°C). This helps to protect heat-sensitive ingredients such as flavourings, vitamins and peptides, maintaining their nutritional and functional properties.
Besides presenting different processing methods, SternMaid will give an insight into its blending capabilities. The company has a total of eight blending lines to meet all manner of different requirements. On all the lines, liquid ingredients can be sprayed onto the powder homogenously through special nozzles. This enables the extremely fine distribution of micro-components such as flavourings, oils or emulsifiers. And, for highly sensitive applications such as allergen-free foods, SternMaid has a completely separate and independent section of the plant with a counter-current container-blending unit designed to pharmaceutical standards.
In the co-packing sector, SternMaid has the latest packaging lines and the necessary know-how to fill both large industrial containers and consumer packs for the retail trade. Besides filling sacks, fibreboard boxes and FIBCs, the lines can handle cans, tubular bags and folding boxes in sizes from 50–5000 g.
