New Zealand Food Innovation (Waikato) Ltd
New Zealand Food Innovation (Waikato) Ltd (NZFIW) is currently building a new spray drying facility as the regional component of the New Zealand Food Innovation Network. The network is a Government initiative to encourage innovation in the Food Sector, with the ultimate goal of increasing exports. The network consists of four centres around New Zealand, each with different and complementary focus. The Waikato centre will initially focus on dairy and will expand the focus to meat at a later stage. Each centre offers facilities and/or business support for businesses in the Food industry.
The first stage for the Waikato centre is an independent development dairy processing facility located at the Waikato Innovation Park. The facility is a multi-purpose, NZ Food Safety Authority export certified, nominal ½ tonne/hr powder spray drying facility.
Click here for the latest update on the Spray Drying Facility.
Milk Receiving and Storage
The milk reception allows the unloading of milk tankers and milk storage (chilled) of up to 40m3 volume. In the future milk separation, standardisation and batch tanks may be added to enable processing for the manufacture of infant formula and skim milk powder.
Evaporation and Drying
A Tetra Magna TVR evaporator has been designed to concentrate whole milk from approximately 13% TS to 52% TS. Design consideration has been made for future production of infant formula and skim milk powder. The pasteurisation step will be in the evaporator. A high pressure pump and homogeniser will allow for 2 stages of homogenisation and the flexibility to adjust product specifications at the concentrate injection stage.
A very flexible Tetra Magna Wide Body drier will be installed. 57 product groups (i.e. hundreds of individual products and counting) have been manufactured on Tetra Pak wide body driers, making this an ideal choice for this development facility.
Powder Handling and Packing
A vacuum transport system conveys the powder from the sifter to the Packing Line. The product will then be packed into a high spec 25 kg gas flushed packing/sealing machine
With the wide range of products being manufactured, the facility considers protecting customer intellectual property as a high priority and will have systems in place to ensure IP stays with customers.
The centre will be operated as a contract manufacturer and is a 100% owned IWL subsidiary, with an independent board of directors. The facility will be commissioned and operational in the 2nd quarter of 2012.
NZFIW is interested in speaking to anyone or any company who wishes to book capacity or discuss plant capability. With a secure manufacturing agreement the plant will be extended, e.g. potentially to infant formula standard.
Please contact Dave Shute or Derek Fairweather today.
