We did it your whey
14 Feb 2022
It is worth looking at the entire process line if you want to achieve optimized, customer-specific processes for separating whey. Sarah Meszaros, Lennart Beick, and Christian Becker told us how new, valuable whey products are being made reliably and efficiently. We also looked at why GEA´s modular IDEAL Whey separation concept has been winning awards and why it is a further milestone in the development of self-optimizing centrifuges.
Dumping is not an option. Sarah Meszaros wrote her thesis about cheese production and the utilization of cheese fines made from whey. She turned this interest into a career in 2013, and continues it today as Head of Sales Steering & Support Separation Dairy in Oelde, Germany. “I was always interested in transforming what used to be a waste product into a valuable, protein-rich ingredient in its various forms,” says Sarah Meszaros, “and I draw on my own experience. As a mother of two small children, I look carefully for high-quality baby food, in which whey proteins play a major part. And sports nutrition would be unthinkable without them.”
From unloved by-product to valuable ingredient: we make it happen.”– Sarah Meszaros, Senior Director Business Line Dairy at GEA
– Sarah Meszaros, Senior Director Business Line Dairy at GEA
Thinking along the whole process line
It can be challenging when a traditional industry like dairy continuously pushes for more efficiency, cost savings, and resource conservation through innovation. “GEA Westfalia Separator‘s product portfolio provides a complete whey processing line from one source,” explains Sarah Meszaros. “You can only achieve maximum yield by choosing the components that suit your needs best and getting the stages to work together perfectly.” Here‘s an outline, limited to the liquids: firstly, a clarifier takes the whey which comes from cheese production and removes the solid particles, which primarily means cheese fines. Next in line is the skimmer, which separates whey cream from skimmed whey. To make sure the cream has a consistent fat content, you use a Standomat – a special automated unit for standardization. After that, bacteria are killed off in a pasteurizer. One or two bacterial removal separators are also used for products that are highly sensitive and in which safety is essential, such as baby food. These remove bacteria and spores that are heat resistant, which improves the shelf life of the products enormously.
Whey En Route to Efficiency: Step by step along the whey line using GEA Separation process technology
Sarah Meszaros adds: “We supply complete lines, but we can also trim things down. Our CleanSkimmer offers one investment with two functions. It’s an option for customers who can do without a clarifier which depends of their whey composition, but this does not work with every kind of cheese. Ultimately, the yield doesn’t come close to using two separators. Advice on costs and benefits can help a lot in making decisions.” “In terms of cost-effectiveness, both systems are impressive, “ argues Christian Becker, Product Manager Dairy at GEA Westfalia Separator. “In a conventional commercial 30,000 l/h line, the CleanSkimmer can extract up to 63,000 liters p.a. more of 30% cream from the whey (depending on type) than a conventional skimmer. If you consider a clarifier and skimmer together, you get up to 130,000 liters more cream from the whey than with a simple skimmer – which means this pair of machines pay for themselves in less than two years.”
Milk fat prices being what they are, a clarifier pays for itself in under two years.”– Christian Becker, Product Manager Dairy at GEA
– Christian Becker, Product Manager Dairy at GEA
Systematic discharge
“A general design benefit of GEA separators is their wear-free discharge systems, which are as precise after 100,000 discharges as they are when first used,” says Sarah Meszaros. “They incorporate a hydraulic solution which is flexible according to demand, fast, and easy on resources – much more so than mechanically operated versions such as those involving springs, which are wearing parts. The more imprecise discharging is, the more product you lose.” Directly driven separator technology is also advantageous. It’s easy to service and highly efficient, since the energy from the motor is transmitted directly to the bowl spindle, resulting in 98% energy efficiency as opposed to 76% in gear-driven models.
Lennart Beick from the Process Technology department explains further. “But it isn’t just about pure mechanics when a separator discharges the collected solids. It’s more and more important that these machines discharge at the right time, because whey clarifiers and skimmers are not always fed at a constant rate. Intelligent systems ensure that the separator ‘recognizes’ how much product it’s getting, then adapts its discharge intervals and also bowl speed automatically.” Lennart Beick’s role is a special one. He wrote a thesis on demand-based skimming separator discharge in collaboration with GEA Separation and involving lab tests and a prototype phase on-site at the customer, Ammerland Dairy. “The customer was so convinced by our approach that they immediately equipped seven dairy lines with it. Further developments later went into what is today the IDEAL Whey concept.”
Ammerland and their seven high-yield separators A view of five of the seven GEA milk and whey separators at Ammerland Dairy in northern Germany.
Ideal innovation - Food tech award in silver
It’s always gratifying when commitment and persistence in an improvement process are rewarded, as they were in February 2021, when the IDEAL Whey separation concept created by GEA Separation won the international FoodTec Award in Silver (DLG). “IDEAL Whey arose from the idea of making all our optimization features in the digitalization, value creation, and sustainability areas easier for our users to understand. What we are striving for is ideal whey processing – nothing less will do,” explains Christian Becker. He sees his job as translating the requirements of the market and the ideas of GEA’s experts into technical solutions and coordinating the complex process of their development.
White gold is getting pricier
Efficiency is still very much a relevant theme. Producers in many countries are still asking what to do with all the whey they produce. There’s also a rising demand for high-grade cheese, whey proteins, and lactose. “To give you an idea,” says Sarah Meszaros, “if you use 12 liters of milk to make 1 kg of cheese, 11 liters of whey are left over. There’s so much potential to exploit that.” Coming back to IDEAL Whey, Christian Becker explains, “By combining innovative sensors, mechanical design, and intelligent control strategies, this concept has become a milestone in GEA’s continued efforts to evolve its machines and systems and offer its customers the ultimate in technical expertise for more sustainable production.” Lennart Beick, speaking as a developer, adds, “and not all of the benefits can be shown in figures. How can you quantify process stability properly as a performance indicator?” There’s something of a white gold rush atmosphere among the dairy competence team, and if there was a song they were to sing about their expertise, it would have to be: “We do it your whey…”.
IDEAL Whey is modular in the way it´s set up. You can use exactly the features that bring added value.”– Lennart Beick, Process Technology Manager at GEA
– Lennart Beick, Process Technology Manager at GEA
