Cold fill juice drink

We would like to do a cold fill juice drink. We are using potassium sorbate for preservative, citric acid as acidulant and pasteurisation as a CCP for microbes. Would this be be sufficient to ensure a shelf life of about 6 mnths at ambient temperatures?
We are using orange and multi fruit concentrates and resulting in a final juice content of 22% and 15% respectively.
Any advice?

I have been involved with a similar product and not knowing anything else about your product I would think you could get 6 mos.  But your product, conditions, equipment, storage, etc are unique to you so rigorous shelf life study is in order.

Thanks RMAV, I do agree considering all the microbial hurdles. I am especially worried for mould growth and spoilage during warehouse storage.

Hello dahmun,

What is the PH of your product and acidity of your product and what is your pasteurisation temperature.

If you want to do a cold fill(for acidic juices pH <4.5) the filling process after pasteurisation should  be done in highly sterile environment and filling bottles should be sterilised with permitted sterilant.

The process will be similar  to Aseptic tetra pack for juices (high acid pH< 4.5 ) which are treated similarly and cold packed but the process and machinaries are sophisticated and process carriied out in sterile environment.

So prevent mold growth apart from preservative you will have to pack in sterile environment and your cold juice storage tank before filling should not come in contact with outside air after pasteurisation and  should be sterile before collecting cold juice in the tank.

Even  your filler should  be sterilised  before filling .

You will also have  to include anti-oxidant(ascorbic acid) in your formulation.

Product pH is 3.5, I have not done a titration to determine acidity. Pasteurisation time and temp is 15 secs at 85 degrees Celsius.
All contact surfaces are pre cleaned and sanitized via CIP and COP is done on filler nozzles.
Bottles are pre sanitized with ozonated water before filling and ascorbic acid has been added to formulation.
Finally I am seeking a fogger for environmental treatment of possible mould growth and airborne spores for production area.
What do you guys think?

What's your ozone concentration in the water for the bottles and the contact time in the bottles?

As for fogging, I have not seen any data that it really does much but I have not looked in a while either.  For mold spores you're looking for contact time of your sanitizer (should go "disinfectant" strength according to the product label - I'm using USA terminology here) and the atomizer in my opinion does not get adequate contact time.  For airborne spores control, you're looking at control of the environment more than trying to control it with chemicals.  Keep in mind, you really only need to control the environment around the open product, e.g. the mixer station and/or the filler.

*just my experienced opinions, I'm not an expert on this product or process

We would like to do a cold fill juice drink. We are using potassium sorbate for preservative, citric acid as acidulant and pasteurisation as a CCP for microbes. Would this be be sufficient to ensure a shelf life of about 6 mnths at ambient temperatures?
We are using orange and multi fruit concentrates and resulting in a final juice content of 22% and 15% respectively.
Any advice?

Dear Dahmun,

You can test your product shelflife using Accelarated shelflife test, you can use archeniuss model for do that.

rgds

AS Nur

Dear Dahmun

i will share my experience.i have test production cold fill juice drink (Orange Juice 20%) same your .i filling in PET bottle.Product pH is 3.5-3.7. Pasteurisation time and temp is 20 secs at 94 degrees Celsius.My product Shelf life have about 6 months at ambient temperatures is OK but it is necessary about  pre cleaned and sanitized CIP and COP at filling Room and Storage tank after pasteurisation.if your cleaned and sanitized not correct your product have possible bacteria , yeast , mould can growth. 

Best regards

Santichai

Santichai,

At what concentration (%) are you using your preservative ( potassium sorbate)?

Dear Dahmun

I use Tangerine  Concentrate about 4% in my formula and use sodium benzoate for preservative.

Best regards

Santichai

Hi to all,

Does anyone have microbiological limits for orange juice drinks of about 20% juice. The product has been acidified and pasteurised at 90 degrees C for 20 s. I am looking for expected aerobic plate counts, coliform counts and yeast & mold counts.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Anything?

Also pasteurisation at stated temp and time should destroy any anaerobic spoilers?

Another issue I need assistance with is removal of water from pipelines and tubular pasteurizer. Other than purging line with nitrogen to force out water, what else can be done for water removal?

Dahmun,

I know this sounds crazy, but really if the product is truly aseptic your counts for everything, aerobic, coliform and y/m should all be <1  . Especially coliform, if you are getting any counts on this then there is more than likely a problem.

We put our limits at

  Standard Plate Count Yeast / Mold Sample Preparation
prior to plating         Aseptic <5 cfu / mL <1 cfu / mL 3 days @ 86 F

Here are some levels that we use preservatives at

Sodium Benzoate @ around a 0.06%

polysorbate 60 @ a 0.2% usage

 EDTA @ a 0.01% usage

Potassium Sorbate @ 0.03%

Some of our aseptic formulas use sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate and EDTA together

It rains inside your micro limits didnt type out properly but I am assuming you said

Standard plate count <5cfu/ml
YM count <1 cfu/ml

I am only using potassium sorbate but I know the synergism works best with sodium benzoate. I don't want to use sodium benzoate due to the reaction with ascorbic acid and benzene prodn.
What is your juice content for your beverages?
Also my filling unit has some spaces at the top but not directly over the bottles and after ozonated rinsing the bottles are filled and capped fairly quickly in the filler.
Your thoughts?

What type of filling unit is being used here? Most aseptic fillers have some type of "sterile" zone in which a sterilizer is applied (for example highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide) and then flushed with HEPA or ozone air...before moving on to a filling station

 and also, what type of container is this product going into? PET bottles or polyboard cartons? That may help us answering your questions

Also, and please take this kindly, you should have your process approved based on a number of different factors, viscosity, pH, brix, gpm... 15 sec at 85C should do the trick but products (and equipment) should all be treated uniquely. For example we have a 20% product that required a 17-20 second hold at 198-202F, just based on the parameters of the processor.

Our juice content ranges from 10-100%

And yes my apologies, you are correct on the micro limits, we store at 86F for 3 days prior to plating

One example I can share - 20% juice product:

Processes 182-185F for 30 seconds @ 45 gpm

w/ a specific gravity of 1.083, Brix range 19.4 - 20.4, a pH of 2.6 

We used Calcuim Disodium EDTA @ .01%, Polysorbate 60 @ 0.2%, SBenzoate @ .03#, PotassiumSorbate @.03% CITRIC @ 0.8% (Stuff it full of preservatives)

gave us a 1 year shelf life
 

By the way - we purge product to the floor to clean the lines - not practical, but an option

Thanks it rains.
Our processes are approved based on our predetermined quality parameters of pH, brix, micro.

Our packaging material is PET bottles.

Our filling station has a rinser for rinsing caps and bottles with ozonated water at 0.4mg/L for disinfection before filling. It does not have environmental air control like hepa filter for clean air or ozonated air. It is enclosed with a space of the filler head which we will be enclosing to try to control the air quality as much as possible.

Thoughts?

We have a PET bottle filler as well, we installed stainless guards around the area of filling leading to the capper (there was about a 2 foot distance from filling to capping) I think you are doing the right thing with trying to control the air quality. It sounds like you are headed in the right direction to me!!

I know this might be asking for a lot but can I get a picture of the stainless steel guard which you have installed? It sounds like you have only controlled the air directly around the actual filler heads and the capper ( where the pasteurised juice circuit would become exposed to environmental air) .

Its no problem - actually we do not control the environmental air around the filling unit - because of the way this was formulated the preservatives will hold off any spoilage bacteria and then we let the pH of the product take care of the pathogenic side. 

The stainless guard above the bottles as they travel to the capper are to prevent any foreign contamination greater than 6mm (FDA reg on choking hazard) (See attached pic)

Some pre-commissioning testing that we did that helped immensly:

Bioburden micro testing for y/m on 10 bottles, target results at <2 cfu.

Air plates of the filler area - w/ PDA agar, 5 min exposure, 3 locations before capping, target results < 10 cfu

Air Rinse validation (to validate the functionality to remove foreign materials) samples size: 4 bottles, fill with .01 gram of corrugate dust, pass if no visible particulate observed after water fill

(Also fill validation if you are filling volumetrically) and Torque Testing

Then obvisously sanitation checks, ATP swabbing of filling nozzles, fill bowl and 4 bottles post CIP process.

Hope this helps

Thanks a lot. On my side my filler is not aseptic but as I stated we are working to make it as air controlled as possible and possibly include ozonated air directly around the filling nozzles to handle fungal spores which may be air borne.

I am at 0.03% potassium sorbate as my only preservative with citric acid as my acidulant.

Our bottle filler is not aseptic either, like I said we just loaded with preservatives and kept the pH low (2.6) I think you have a pretty good handle though

Hi ,

We would like to do RTS drink juice based in PET bottle . We are using preservative potassium sorbate , pasteurization at 94 deg C  for 30 sec . product pH is less than 4.2.

We are using apple  and multi fruit concentrates and resulting in a final juice content 15% respectively.

So i wanted know that can I  fill my product at 55-60 deg C.

after filling product will be safe for 6 months ??

Kindly suggest.