GEA’s whey drainage and maturation tunnel system, anti-sticking surface treatment and microfiltration techniques produce high-quality mozzarella cheese
Technology group GEA, has recently concluded an order for one of the largest automated cheese plants in India. It supplied a fully automatic, complete mozzarella/pizza cheese line along with CIP (cleaning in place) system to produce cheese at two metric tons per hour (2mt/hr).
The automated cheese line was catered to a private Dairy firm in Tamil Nadu, Milky Mist Dairy Foods Private Limited. Earlier, the same firm had ordered a complete greenfield project for processing 0.6 million litres of milk and 40 tons of whey powder per day.
Sathish Kumar, Managing Director of Milky Mist, said, “GEA has already executed another project for us. We appreciate their innovative approach to a specialized product like mozzarella cheese. As we wish to take our products international, we are convinced that we need to adopt technologies which will not only ensure high quality and hygiene standards but also maintain environmental sustainability.”
Suket Gohil, Managing Director, GEA India added that the dairy was offering an environment-friendly technology for high-quality mozzarella cheese. “It is a pleasure to work with clients who want to introduce such high standards to enable industry growth sustainably”, he said.
Unlike conventional hot water stretching systems, the milk does not lose any fat and proteins in whey with GEA’s patented continuous steam stretching of curd. This results in enhanced yield, a better fibrous structure for longer stretchability and reduced energy consumption by up to 30 per cent.
GEA technology
The plant features another patented technology by GEA – whey drainage and maturation tunnel system for continuous maturation of curd in controlled acidity development, which is first of its kind in India. Its anti-sticking surface treatment on machine parts, ‘Vulcan’, ensures that there are no Teflon particles in the final product which is a very important feature in the safe production of high-quality cheese. Furthermore, the plant uses microfiltration for continuous decontamination of the brine bath.
The plant equipment has been supplied by GEA in Italy. The local GEA experts have more than 40 years of experience in mozzarella cheese production technology. With its expertise to meet every production target, GEA can supply, install and commission complete production plants for soft/fresh, semi-hard and hard cheeses, as well as pasta filata cheese like mozzarella, pizza cheese and ricotta etc.
The Milky Mist plant is one of the largest operational and fully automated pizza cheese lines in India. It has a diverse portfolio of value-added milk products including
cheese, paneer, yoghurt, flavoured yoghurt and ghee.
