STEAMDRY

Superheated Steam-based process for low energy and high quality drying of food and food residues

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The EU market for processed foods is changing: there is now an increasing demand by consumers for foods that have undergone fewer changes during processing, foods that resemble more to the original raw materials with high nutritive values, flavour and a “natural” image. These pressures are especially significant for a SME dominated sector, the dried foods: although it represents more than €8 billion in Europe, the sales of dried foods are currently in stagnation or declining. Indeed, not only the food processing machinery SMEs must improve the drying process to achieve high quality dried food to meet the customer high requirements, but also they must tackle the energy consumption and pollution issues which are typical of such equipment. For the food machinery SMEs, today is the time to respond to these changes and enable the dried food industries to recover their competitiveness. To do so, they need to face 3 main challenges: Low quality of the final dried products, High energy consumption to dry the raw materials, Significant environmental pollution, via CO2/odor emissions. The STEAMDRY project gathers 4 SMEs and 1 association, which aims at developing a new drying plant to allow food producers and food processing SMEs to dry their foods with efficiency, high quality and sustainability, thanks to: -Innovative drying technology, using superheated steam at low pressure, ensuring efficiency through better heat transfer and a better quality of product due to lower temperature -2-step cleaning system to remove the dust/particles from the extra steam and allow its reuse in the upstream process, reducing the energy bill -New optical multi-sensor integrated in the process control, to monitor the food drying quality along with the energy balance of the system. The STEAMDRY process will enable the food processing machinery and food processing SMEs to recover their competitivity via the production of high quality dried products, with lower process impact on energy environment'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The dried food industry in Europe is in decline because of mounting concerns over quality and consumer demands. An EU initiative aims to reverse the trend and boost competitiveness by developing innovative technology to dry products while maintaining quality.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

European dried food producers and food processing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face a number of challenges, namely low-quality products, excessive use of energy in drying raw materials and negative impact on the environment.

The EU-funded http://www.steamdry.eu/ (STEAMDRY) (Superheated steam-based process for low energy and high quality drying of food and food residues) project set out to supply high-quality processed foods while making the drying process more energy and cost efficient as well as environmentally friendly.

To achieve this, development is underway on a number of novel solutions. A prototype dryer was created that enables improved heat transfer. Work has also begun on technology that gets rid of dust and particles from steam. This allows steam to be reused, minimises maintenance and reduces energy consumption.

Project partners are developing a process control system that characterises the smell of food before, during and after drying. A sensor that checks food drying quality such as hazardous aroma compounds in steam is being specified and designed. Various fruit and vegetable compounds have been identified. Once complete, the sensor will be integrated into the system.

STEAMDRY is developing state-of-the-art tools to better dry fruit and vegetables in a sustainable way while respecting the environment. By retaining nutritional and caloric values and maintaining aroma, food producers and SMEs will be able to stem the tide of negative consumer perception and low confidence, and ultimately see dwindling dried food sales rise once again.