Project
Product and process development of baby and medical products
Product and process development of baby and medical products
At Danone Research, centre for specialized nutrition, we develop medical and baby products, which are generally milk-based. Medical products are mainly liquid drinks, whereas baby products are mainly powders. Medical products are meant for patients with specific diseases, such as diabetics, alzheimer, or cancer or for patients, who are malnourished. These products have to be stable at ambient temperature for one year. Our liquid products are highly concentrated in proteins, fat, carbohydrates, and minerals, which strongly interact with each other. This can affect the emulsion and heat stability of our final products during processing and shelf life. Therefore, a good understanding of ingredient interactions is very important during product development. Powders are generally produced in a spray dryer from a liquid intermediate phase. Hence, a good understanding of ingredient interactions is important for development of powders as well. We develop our products on a small scale in our pilot plants in Wageningen and Zoetermeer. In our laboratories we have advanced techniques available to analyze the trial products.
We offer different topics on which you can work during your internship/ thesis period:
- Protein technology: interaction between proteins and minerals. Proteins we focus on are whey, casein, and vegetable proteins.
- Emulsion technology: interaction between proteins, emulsifiers, and fat
- Process technology: spray drying, agglomeration, encapsulation of specific components, dissolving of ingredients, modeling.
- Powder technology: solubility, stickiness, agglomeration, properties of powders.
- Development of new food forms
- In-vitro gastric digestion of foods
More information: esther.dekort@danone.com
