Why Choose Food Research Lab's FRL as Your Food Product Development (FPD) Consultant and Partner?

There are several options in almost every product area in today’s market, and the difficulty is in coming up with unique items that stand out and connect with customers. Food Research Lab's Food Research Lab (FRL) takes a holistic approach to creating food and beverage products. We define, demographically target, and build effective goods through a sequential process for category selection and comprehension. The client can visit the lab to learn the process. We offer unlimited rounds of revisions to ensure customer satisfaction. The final product prototype, along with the documentation process, including the video (through email), will be shipped to the client, and in case the client is not satisfied with the video, a food technology consultant will visit the place for the product demo at the client’s costs.

What are the different forms that you deliver the Food Product Formulations?

The food industry is witnessing a new form of consumption. Keeping that in mind, we can formulate the products in the form of ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink, ready-to-mix, ready-to-serve, and ready-to-cook food products. We use ingredients that offer an added value to the development and improve its indulgence and sustainability in terms of its functional ingredients, plant-based food dyes, and natural preservatives with a clean label.

What are the sectors Food Research Lab cover?

We cover a wide range of sectors such as soups, sauces and dips, chips, tortillas, dry beverage powder, plant-based products, masalas, puddings, instant mixes and many more.

How is sensory testing been carried out?

Our sensory examination leads to the precise formulation and recipe recommendations. We develop data-driven design models based on sensory research and customer insights. The fact-based design methodology used by Food Research Lab reduces risk and gives our clients market confidence while cutting development time in half. With our dedicated sensory lab facility, our team takes satisfaction in creating and optimizing successful products in the marketplace, generating a favourable return on investment, and developing brand advocates.

Recent advances in extrusion technology

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Recent advances in extrusion technology

Introduction

The word ‘extrusion’ has its origin from the Latin word ‘extrude’, which means ‘thrust out’ or ‘force out’.
Extrusion is a technique in which a material is squeezed under high temperature and pressure through a die or an orifice of the desired cross-section.
Food extrusion is a technique in which a material is pushed to flow under varied conditions by combining thermal and mechanical treatment through a die (shaped hole) at a predetermined rate to produce various products.
Extrusion cooking is defined as a combination of thermal and mechanical treatment by which protein or starch-rich ingredients are plasticized and cooked in a cylinder to obtain a predefined shape.

Principle

An extrusion is a combination of multiple unit operations, the operating principle of which is the same in all types.
The food components are compressed, mixed, sheared, kneaded and cooked to a molten state. The molten components are then extruded through a thin die to produce semi-cooked or cooked food with minimal nutritional loss [1].

Advantages

Extrusion technology is a more efficient and cost-effective technique for producing food than labour-intensive processes such as batch cooking.
The capacity of extrusion technology to offer a food-safe cooking procedure with an industry-standard Critical Control Point (CCP) for product temperature is another significant benefit. This guarantees that the finished product is safe for pet consumption in addition to being of the highest quality.
Continuous operation of the production line.
High production volumes compared to traditional batch cooking.
Good mixing (Compounding) of the product when more ingredients are used. Extrusion can be used for various combinations of ingredients, such as millet, whey, dough and meat.

Extrusion can be used for a wide range of products

Disadvantages

Extrusion food processing has drawbacks such as a high upfront cost and the need to carefully choose process variables like moisture content, feed particle size, feed rate, screw speed, temperature, screw configuration, and die shape to prevent the formation of hazardous and reactive substances [2].

Advancements in extrusion technology:

The pet food business has seen a shift in extrusion technology in recent years toward sustainability and energy efficiency. Thermal energy systems, in particular, are becoming more and more popular because of their energy-efficient and renewable features.
Extrusion gives processors the freedom to use local ingredients, and the extruder’s fast adjustment of process parameters to operating conditions lowers product loss.
The biggest developments in extrusion technology in recent years have been in energy efficiency and process sustainability, and they are continuously developing.
Thermal energy (steam or surface heating) has attracted interest because these systems can be electric (which are renewable) or even very energy efficient with closed-cycle surface heating systems (extruder barrel elements). Recent observations of improved food taste produced by cooking with thermal energy instead of mechanical energy fit well with sustainable demand [3].