Ice cream is a key dairy product with global sales exceeding 60 billion euros in 2021. Satron’s VOA optical sensor has proven its ability to generate important savings and help producers in monitoring processes, particularly product/water interfaces.
The VOA’s dual wavelength is able to detect as little as 5% water in common ice cream mixes. It can be placed as close as 2 meters in front of aging tanks or freezers, and command a valve when it detect water to prevent any mixing. Product losses are reduced to the minimum and quality is secured.
This is particularly important at the final 2 steps of the process, aging and freezing. Any addition of water there will result in quality issues. For this reason, if water pushes between runs are based on time, producers typically add significant margins to avoid adding water into final product. This causes important product losses.
Ice cream is made with a mixture of milk, cream/oil, sugars, proteins, aromas and stabilizers. Fat content is often above 10%, in the range between the fattest yoghurts and light creams. Because of high fat and stabilizer content, a standard turbidity meter can’t be used to detect water addition, and Satron’s VOA is the solution of choice.
