Machine range targets water use and whey for greener cheese

28-Apr-2009 - Last updated on 29-Apr-2009 at 11:21 GMT

An ongoing focus on efficient water use by Tetra Pak has led to the development of more cost effective, environmentally friendly cheese production equipment, claims the manufacturer.

Tetra Pak says this month’s launch of its Tetra Tebel Casomatic SC 7 device can specifically meet needs for more efficient cheese and whey production without compromising quality.

According to the manufacturer, the latest generation of its Tebel Casomatic has been designed to reduce maintenance downtime during production by improving Cleaning In Place (CIP) processes and reducing freshwater use.

A spokesperson for the manufacturer told DairyReporter.com that environment had played a particularly key role in the latest design with the group targeting more efficient resource use as a means of lowering environmental impacts.

To this end, the company claimed that water use was one of the areas being focused on through attempts to reduce CIP requirements like the design of a new base-unit to minimise the need for water flushing.

Tetra Pak said that greener solutions regarding water use were not just vital focuses in terms of the environment, but for cost as well, particularly when being flushed into whey.

Water consumption

The manufacture claims that consumption of fresh water during production could be cut by about 65 per cent with the new system, with an additional 60 per cent reductions estimated to be possible during CIP.

Although the company says its water efficiency is not a new focus when designing production equipment, it was nonetheless a growing area of concern during product design.

“We continuously improve water efficiency with each new generation of our equipment,” stated a spokesperson for the company. “We believe that water management will become increasingly important and we will strengthen our activities in this area.”

The company added that in addition to playing up commitments to environmentally friendly water use, ensuring higher quality whey output can also affect overall efficiency.

Product waste was used as an example of an area that the machine can reduce, with estimates from the company suggesting cuts of 95 per cent were possible through more sensitive weight accuracy.

“Tetra Tebel Casomatic SC 7 helps the producers in the semi-hard cheese segment make superior quality whey and cheese with better accuracy when it comes to product properties like moisture content and weight,” states the manufacturer.

Although the new system will be more expensive then previous generations of the equipment, Tetra Pak says that cost efficiency modifications made to the design could ensure reduced payback time for manufacturers.