Over the years, I’ve worked with a wide variety of nutraceutical powders and watched the industry focus shift from dietary supplements that are protein meal replacements to plant-based, allergy-sensitive, and most recently a focus on preventive care. One thing that I've learned is that filling these products accurately and efficiently can be challenging, especially since each of them are a unique blend. From varying flow characteristics to aeration and degradation, there are a lot of different product behaviors to consider.
Dealing with product-based machinery issues before your line is even up and running is the last thing you want. That’s why being able to test your product in our Test Lab is critical to ensuring that your auger filler will work for your application...before it hits your production floor. In this blog, I will talk about the things we test for in our lab to ensure that you have the right tooling for your nutraceutical powder product.
If you choose the wrong tooling size for your application, troubleshooting in your facility can be costly. Using the incorrect tooling will cause inaccuracy and product drip issues, and ultimately it could require you to purchase additional tooling. When you use our lab, we can test various tooling types and parameters, as well different options that may be required based on the product flow characteristics, preventing these problems from ever arising. This is especially beneficial if you’re running multiple SKUs that may require a variety of solutions.
In addition to minimizing product drip, which prevents contamination and product loss, choosing the correct tooling also reduces wear and tear. By lowering the strain on your auger filler’s components, you extend the lifespan of your equipment. Below are some of the things that we can test to ensure your tooling is right for your product.
Overflight refers to flighting–a helical screw blade–that’s larger in diameter at the top of your auger. The diameter of this flighting gradually decreases as it moves down, compressing and pushing your nutraceutical powders downward. This ensures that your product is filling the flights of the auger tooling efficiently and with accurate repeatability as it moves through the auger filler. Since nutraceutical powder products, particularly those with additives such as cocoa, are non-free flowing, they usually don’t easily move through the filler without design modifications and application expertise. Overflight is particularly helpful in these instances.
Drip issues are another common problem that nutraceutical companies have when filling powder products. These issues arise for a number of reasons, including aeration and improper agitation and inadequate product cut-off devices –all of which can get tested in our Lab.
Aeration: When there’s extra air in your product, its density can change. This causes nutraceutical powders to fluidize and reduces the stability of your filling. We can identify potential aeration issues before they ever happen when we’re able to test your product and run it as if it were in your facility. Some of the ways we can do this are by reducing continuous agitation, adding time to your process (letting product sit in the hopper for a designated amount of time, known as densification) and more.
Agitation: Over-agitating product can contribute to product degradation, which can in turn lead to product drip. All of our auger fillers come standard with variable speed agitation, which can also reduce product degradation and improve accuracy. We have several agitation configurations that we test to make sure we are using the proper amount of agitation for every product. In the Lab, we can test different agitation scenarios to ensure that it’s appropriate for your application.
Positive Cut-Off Devices: Using the right positive cut-off device can greatly reduce product drip. That’s because it helps provide a clean cut-off of the product flow at the end of the filling cycle, preventing product from dribbling by blocking flow. In turn, accuracy is also further enhanced, contamination is reduced and waste is minimized. When we’re able to test your product in our Lab, we can identify the correct cut-off device.
Although there are far more we can test in our lab, these are a great place to start.
Ready to partner with Spee-Dee and fill your nutraceuticals with confidence?
Reach out today.