Best powder quality for baby food
Highest hygiene standards for every challenge
DMK Baby is regarded as a reliable partner for high-quality baby food, and with its Humana brand, the company has been one of the leading international manufacturers for many years. In recent years, DMK Baby has continued to expand and modernize the plant at the Strückhausen site. Investments totaling 145 million euros in recent years have transformed the plant into one of the world’s most modern baby food factories. With state-of-the-art technology, efficient processes and equipment, the plant can process baby food in the best powder quality.
Since the start-up of the new plant, powdered baby food for the German and international market has been produced there in compliance with the highest quality and safety standards. For the production of the baby food, only milk from mostly local producers, from GMO-free production, is used.
Concept development, project management and project control of the entire plant were carried out under the direction of the engineering office KSI from Krefeld. The entire bulk solids systems were realized by the company Derichs GmbH Verfahrenstechnik from Übach-Palenberg. In detail, this includes all dosing and mixing equipment for powdery products as well as the plant components for filling and emptying of big bags and sacks for a product-friendly, internal transport of the semi-finished products.
Highest precision and safety
The production of powdered infant nutrition is an extremely complex and elaborate process. For the health of infants, it is absolutely essential that the required ingredients are contained in the baby food in exactly the right quantities. Of course, it must be ensured that the food is not contaminated microbiologically or with other foreign bodies during the entire production process. This is ensured by the high hygiene requirements of the production plant.
After milk reception and treatment of raw milk, the production process consists of several main processes:
First, a liquid mixture of milk and various other base materials, such as lactose and protein, is produced. The base substances are delivered in powder form in big bags and sacks. The substances are then dosed according to the recipe and dissolved in milk in a high-shear mixer.
After the first process step, most of the water contained in the liquid mixture is removed in an evaporator to be dried in a spray dryer into a free-flowing and easily soluble agglomerated powder.
In the final process step, the infant formula is canned. Before filling, the spray-dried powder is mixed with other vital ingredients, such as vitamins and minerals. Due to their particular temperature sensitivity, these ingredients can only be added after the spray-drying process.
High-precision metering systems are installed throughout the production process for the gram-accurate metering of all large, medium and micro-components. Downstream mixing systems use sophisticated technology to ensure absolutely homogeneous mixing of all products.
All powdered raw materials and semi-finished products are sieved after being emptied from big bags and small containers in order to detect and sort out foreign bodies at an early stage. In addition, rotating permanent magnets and active metal detectors are located at all points in the production process to detect the smallest metal parts or particles.
The systems implemented by Derichs comply with the latest hygiene standards (EHEDG, GMP, IFS, EC 1935/2004) in order to ensure the flawless microbiology of the end products.
