Process Control for Fat and Moisture/Solids Content in Dairy Products

Introduction

Consumer demand for dairy products is at an all-time high, with global consumption expected to grow at a rate of 1.8% per year over the next ten years. Fat and moisture testing for dairy products has traditionally been done by wet chemistry techniques, which are time consuming and often involve skilled technicians and hazardous solvents. Various rapid techniques (TD-NMR, NIR, FT-IR, and FT-NIR) have been introduced, but none have been universally accepted due to the need for often extensive calibration development and maintenance.

The ORACLE^TM is a rapid time domain NMR (TD-NMR) instrument incorporating proprietary technology that allows for direct determination of fat/oil in foodstuffs. Unlike other rapid techniques, the ORACLE is able to completely isolate the detection of fat in complex matrices which eliminates the need for calibration. To allow for rapid moisture/solids as well as fat testing, the ORACLE can be coupled with a SMART 6^TM moisture/solids analyzer.

To demonstrate the ability of the ORACLE and SMART 6 to accurately and reliably determine the fat and moisture content in dairy samples, an assortment of 11 samples were obtained and analyzed. The samples were selected to represent a range of both matrix types as well as relative component concentrations.