Pasteurization for safe products and increased shelf life ​

Pasteurization is primarily used to make products safe to eat or drink, increase shelf life and to reduce spoilage. However, it can also be used to alter the properties of the end product. For example, pasteurization of yoghurt milk denaturates the proteins, enabling the yoghurt culture to grow and making the product both more viscous and more stable.

Given the huge variety of different applications and customer requirements, over 80% of the pasteurization equipment Tetra Pak delivers is customised to meet individual customer needs.

To support our customers’ success, we focus on two main areas: food safety and total cost of ownership (TCO). Take food safety - our equipment offers a number of unique features to ensure the safety of your product. For example, our pasteurizers maintain higher pressure on the pasteurized side while discharging the separator. And the “integrated pressure test” feature lets you detect any leaks in the heat exchanger plates without taking the plate heat exchanger apart.

When it comes to TCO, our pasteurizers have a ‘hibernation’ mode that reduces energy consumption by 80%. This operating mode cuts capacity down by a 1/3, closes the cooling sections, and disables the homogenization pressure while circulating water and waiting for product, prior to production.

Pasteurization is also made more economical by filling balance tanks from the bottom, and simultaneously filling the pasteurizer (when filling and emptying the pasteurizer). This cuts product losses in half at the start and the end of a production run