California Governor Gavin Newsom signing a landmark law known as the California Food Safety Act, Assembly Bill 418. This law bans the use of certain potentially harmful food additives in consumer goods sold in California. The law prohibits the manufacture, sale, or distribution of food products in California containing specific additives, including red dye No. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil, and propylparaben.
Here is some additional information about these additives and the implications of the law:
- Red Dye No. 3: Red dye No. 3 is a food coloring commonly used in various products, including colorful candies and gummies. The law seeks to prohibit its use due to concerns about its potential health risks.
- Potassium Bromate: Potassium bromate is an additive added to baked goods to strengthen and help dough rise higher. Its use is prohibited in California due to potential health concerns associated with its consumption.
- Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO): BVO is used in some beverages to emulsify citrus flavoring and prevent separation. It is being banned in California as part of this law.
- Propylparaben: Propylparabens are used as antimicrobial agents in food preservation. The law restricts their use in California.
The law is aimed at aligning California’s food safety regulations with those of the European Union (EU), which has banned these additives due to scientific studies demonstrating potential public health harms, such as an increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune system.
The Challenge: A New Formulation
These changes have created the need of the existing food, candy, confectionary, baked goods, and beverages to produce these beloved products with new formulations and alternative ingredients. With ingredient or recipe changes, there is a need to update the existing process systems to adapt with these alternative ingredients which may have different properties, handling, and storage, as well as processing parameters. Their need of storing additional ingredients may need specific temperature and a specific processing equipment that the plant may not already have in their existing plant. With the updated formulations, there is a need to maintain the existing texture, color, mouthfeel, fragrance, and other food properties that the consumers are familiar with.
The Solution: An Upgraded Blending System
Placer Process Systems designed and fabricated an in-line, semi-continuous ingredient blending system that preserved the natural taste and feel of the new ingredient concentrates. The new system easily integrated into the existing facility, allowing raw ingredients to be handled in a controlled environment.
Features and Benefits
The features and benefits of the new system created by Placer Process include A metered flow path to the blending tank verifying proper quantities of ingredients. Concentrate transfer using a sanitary air-driven diaphragm pump. Minor ingredient additions from the bulk ingredient drums are metered accurately to the blending system manifold. Water and other major ingredients are also metered and accurately measured as they are transferred from the remote bulk ingredient tanks which are shared for multiple other use points throughout the plants.
Placer Process blending system adds flexibility to the existing blending processes and expandable for custom recipes, and other alternative ingredient changes down the pipeline. With the fast pace of the market demands and increasing health awareness of the consumers, Placer Process offers the flexibility of blending from various ingredients with varying nature from the dry ingredients, liquid ingredients, volatile essences, and other flavoring additives.
Our system has the capability to hydrate dry ingredients prior to in-line mixing, adding minor and major liquid ingredient inline, incorporating high shear mixer for hard to dissolve ingredients with the option for tempering as needed, and incorporating sanitary design with integrated CIP capability. Placer Process Systems understands the delicate nature of food, confectionary, dairy, winery, and beverage processing. Years of experience in this industry gives our engineers the knowledge needed to design custom ingredient blending systems that create a controlled environment for easy ingredient addition, transfer and blending. Our formulation-conscious designs preserve the desired taste and texture of a product, avoiding high shear mixing when needed and using inline mixing techniques whenever possible. We can help you design, select, and build the ingredient storage, blending, and transfer systems that your project needs. Contact Placer Process Systems to see how we can add value to your equipment and processes.
