Moisture, Fat, and Protein Analysis for Non-dairy Products

Introduction

The demand for vegan, vegetarian, and clean label foods has undergone unprecedented growth in recent years. With everincreasing focus on sustainability and health, the dairy alternative market in particular is expected to continue to grow for years to come. With new ingredients being regularly introduced, traditional dairy tests are not always the best option for accuracy, particularly for fat and protein, which are typically unique to the food source. One test that effects all food products is moisture. If moisture levels are too high in ingredients or final products, the shelf life will be significantly diminished. Careful control of moisture, fat, and protein levels in dairy alternatives ensures least-cost formulation that maintains high-quality and good consistency.

The SMART 6^TM with ORACLE^TM is a combination system for rapid moisture and fat determination, with results in less than five minutes. The SMART 6 moisture and solids analyzer utilizes dual-frequency energy to rapidly analyze any product, wet or dry, in three minutes or less. ORACLE eliminates the need for method development by completely isolating the signal from fat molecules, even in complex sample matrices. Sprint^® is a direct protein measurement system, which utilizes dye-binding technology to ensure only true protein is detected, not total nitrogen, which can result in erroneous measurements when non-protein nitrogen is present. Sprint does not require regular calibrations, and methods are easy for any lab user to create. Competitive, rapid technologies (NIR, FT-IR, TD-NMR) require ongoing, expensive calibrations and method development for each unique sample due to variations in color, texture, and consistency.

This study demonstrates that CEM’s innovative technology can rapidly analyze a wide range of dairy alternatives for moisture, fat, and protein with accuracy and precision that matches reference methods.