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Drying
To preserve the precious flavours
The drying process is one of the oldest and most energy-saving methods to preserve food. In order to achieve maximum shelf life the water content of a product is accurately reduced to a low level.
At HACO a variety of modern drying technologies are used to extend the shelf life of the finished products. During the spray drying process the coffee and tea extracts are atomised into a drying tower and dried by a warm airflow to a soluble instant product. |
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On the other hand the freeze-drying is a particularly careful drying procedure to capture the volatile aroma components: this method was first used by HACO in 1969 - as the first industrial enterprise in Switzerland. Coffee extract is frozen at minus 40°C in thin layers and then granulated. The frozen granules are conveyed into a vacuum cabinet, in which the frozen water evaporates directly from ice to steam (sublimation). A similar method is applied with our so-called vacuum belt dryers, which are used for the production of malt-based breakfast beverages and semi-finished food ingredients. In this case products in a paste form are foamed under vacuum conditions and carefully dried at low temperatures in order to preserve the volatile flavours.
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