Top three reasons to use Steam Infusion in baby food production
The baby food market is booming. The global baby food & infant formula market size is projected to reach USD120.59 billion by 2025, according to Adroit Market Research. With such an increase, baby food production facilities are under growing pressure to keep up with the market and ensure facilities are best equipped to match this demand.
What’s more, when it comes to feeding the most precious members of the population, baby food must not only appeal to these tiny consumers and their parents, but also provide them with the nutrients that are so important for growth. Baby food producers are therefore faced with a challenge; how do I increase my cooking speeds to keep up with demand, while also focusing on improving nutrition and taste? By incorporating innovative Steam Infusion technology into your food facility, you can speed up your production while producing tasty, high quality and safe products.
1 - Nutritional needs
The first year of a baby’s life is critical in ensuring they get enough vitamins for growth and development, and with recent headlines over sugar levels in baby food, it’s a challenge to find the balance between the right nutritional levels while also appealing to babies’ taste buds. Not only this, baby food has notoriously been labelled quite bland due to the high temperatures used in cooking to ensure the food is pasteurised and free-from any bad bacteria. At this early stage in their life, the different tastes of food are actually extremely important for babies to explore, as they can discover which flavours they might like and enjoy.
The quick cooking time of the Steam Infusion process enhances the flavours of ingredients, creating fresher, more natural and homemade taste profiles because the direct process prevents over-processing of ingredients. Research carried out with the University of Lincoln found that cooking with Steam Infusion maintained more vitamins and minerals against some more conventional systems, ideal for boosting the nutritional profile of your product. Steam Infusion also allows you to maintain naturally brighter foods without any additives or colour enhancers, which could look more appealing to babies.
2 - Texture troubles
The texture babies require varies largely over the first year of their lives and finding a ‘one cook suits all’ method can cause food manufacturers a bit of a headache. Food guides for babies suggest smooth, puréed food can be introduced from four months old, with lumps slowly being incorporated into the texture as they near eight months old. After eight months, it is encouraged to include chunks in a thicker texture product, as this ensures babies are introduced to the concept of chewing.
Steam Infusion can handle the whole range, from smooth to chunky. By increasing the steam pressure, the high-speed controllable mixing environment created with Steam Infusion achieves a homogenising effect to create the smooth texture needed for products designed to meet babies’ earliest nutritional needs. When processing with starch, this allows you to create a fat mimetic resulting in a creamier mouthfeel, which can really appeal to babies as they begin to experience their first taste of food.
So that is the smooth, puréed texture sorted, but what about producing the thicker texture, chunky baby food? This has traditionally caused food manufacturers an issue as the high temperatures and long cooking times can result in a break-down of particulates, losing the important ‘chunky’ element of the food. As Steam Infusion cooks food gently yet quickly, all particulates (such as chunks of meat and vegetables) are left intact. The uninhibited bore within the Vaction™ Pump also allows particulates to pass through with minimal damage, meaning that Steam Infusion can meet all the textural needs of baby food products.
3 - Speedy solution
Meeting growing demand can place a great deal of pressure on speeding up your processes and minimising downtime. Steam Infusion offers a solution to both problems, due to its increased cooking speeds and hygienic design, which means more time can be spent on producing food without wasting production time on cleaning the equipment.
The Steam Infusion Vaction Pump can heat 500kg (1102lbs) of water from 25 ̊C (77 ̊F) to 85 ̊C (185 ̊F) in less than 7 minutes, which can make an enormous difference in day-to-day production. Steam Infusion has been found to heat three times faster than traditional cooking technologies, allowing you to double capacity thanks to accelerated cycle times and scale up your production without the need for additional equipment. Not only can the technology heat rapidly yet effectively, the nature of its design ensures minimal downtime for cleaning. The simplicity of the Vaction Pump, a single annular nozzle, means it is an inherently clean design, which is simple to CIP. Furthermore, zero burn-on and vessel fouling means multiple batches can be run one after another without full CIP, allowing you to increase production to meet customer demand.
The right steam for baby food production
Be sure to check guidelines on what steam is required in the production of baby food in your region. We find that many manufacturers choose to use clean steam in the production of baby food as it is clear of contaminants and chemicals that could affect a baby’s health and it all but eliminates the risk of any contamination in the end product.