Evaluating CIP and Sanitation Chemicals for Fruit Drink Processing Equipment
Dear All,
We have set up a new fruit drink manufacturing unit. Its a semi automatic plant. We would set a CIP practice for the plant. Our plant equipments are the following.
1. Heating Kettle 300 ltr Capacity
2. Homogeniser 300 LPH
3. Plate Heat Exhcanger
4. Storage Tank 300 Ltr Capacity
5. Volumetric Filling Machine.
Our Cip practice include 2% caustic Soda.
For the sanitation we are planning fir hydrogen peroxide 1% ( using Foods Grade 35% W/V).
Without any CIP current Micrbial load is
700 Y&M & 1000 TPC.
Is the above plan sufficient to reduce microbial load. Or do we need to improvise the concentration. Is hydrogen peroxide is good or do we need to change to any other chemicals.
all advises appreciated. Thanks in advance
Honestly you need to validate the CIP process. CIP effectivness depends on time, temperature, volumn / flow, and chem concentration. There are also equipment / sanitary design factors to take into account.
If you are not sure of how to accomplish this, it may be best to seek help from someone with sanitation & chemical experience.
In the USA, hydrogen peroxide is not a popular sanitizer. Id rather use something like peroxyacetic acid / peracetic acid (PAA) if available and makes sense to your process.
What controls you will need will depend a lot on the intrinsic microbiological safety of the drink but with those values, I suspect it's not all that stable. It's worth considering pH, brix etc.
I have never set up a plant like that from scratch which has not been purpose made. On the micro safety you do need to think about what makes it safe. So for example, if you're pasteurising, what happens when the heat isn't achieved? Do you have a divert? Does that contaminate any lines? How are you disinfecting packaging (and also importantly don't forget staff health and safety in that). Typically machines like this have sterile zones. What if you have to break that zone during filling? What risk does that create? Etc etc.