Many new, small businesses are cropping up that cater to the growing organic and homemade-style food market, causing many amateurs and newbies to get into the pre-packaged food industry. When it comes to making organic foods, this often presents new challenges because manufacturers cannot use traditional preservatives to increase shelf life. Food moisture content then becomes even more important.
Water is one of the most plentiful substances in the world and one of the most powerful. It can cause problems in all instances where precise conditions are necessary. The degradation it can cause, even during small-scale exposure is dramatic.
If you are new to food manufacturing (or even if you're an old hand that wants to make a better product), moisture analysis is important in all stages of food production for different reasons:
Arrival:
Moisture increases the weight of the raw food you are buying. Measuring the moisture can save you thousands of dollars when suppliers try to sell you water weight instead of food product. This type of inferior raw food product will also affect the flavor and shelf life of the food product you create.
In Process:
Excess moisture in the air during the production process, (or moisture added by accident); can cause clumping or create a product that is too liquid-like. The food will start to smell and often deteriorate before reaching the last stage of production as well.
After Production:
Excess moisture or too little moisture changes the taste, texture, appearance, shelf life, smell and stability of the product you want to put in stores. Too much moisture can also cause your pre-packaged food to quickly develop mold; develop a melted appearance or sweat in clear packaging. Too little moisture will create food that tastes bad and might cause quick deterioration as well.
For these reasons, you should use a digital moisture analyzer to analyze the moisture in your pre-packaged food product, during all manufacturing stages, (especially if you are selling organic foods).
There are two kinds of moisture analyzers, Precision Analyzers and Professional ones. Precision models typically have hard plastic, indestructible housing and do not do any of their own drying. Professional models tend to have die-cast metal housing and have drying power of their own. Both models can remember your preferred drying parameters and keep specific drying profiles in their memories; and both of them do well with simple jobs that need basic analysis, or complex jobs that need extreme accuracy.
Contact us to decide which moisture analyzer is right for your production center.