Monthly Archives: May 2013

Tech Tip: Preventive Maintenance for Insect Electrocutors

Posted by Devon Vogel  –  Food Safety, General, Sanitation & Janitorial
May 29, 2013

FlySetting up a Preventive Maintenance Program for your insect electrocutors is the best way to ensure that your units are working to their full potential. Ideally, you would choose a month each year for your PM program to be done on the units. It is suggested that this is in the beginning of the year or Spring, with a new insect season.

The PM program should include checking the bulbs for their effectiveness, and making sure there are no other issues with the unit. Fluorescent bulbs that are used in insect electrocutors have an effective life span of 7000 hours or about 9 months. For your convenience, all of our Shat-R-Shield® or Insect-O-Cutor® bulbs come with year labels on them. This aids in your PM program as you are able to tell from a distance what year is labeled on the bulb, and whether it is time to be changed.

Even though a bulb may still be lit, does not mean it is attracting insects, so changing out yearly is recommended. For more information, visit our Learning Center.

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From the Learning Center: Choosing the Right Cheese Packaging

Posted by Marketing Dept.  –  Cheese & Dairy Products, Packaging & Ingredients
May 22, 2013

pic14524There is no such thing as a “good” bag or “bad” bag. In cheese packaging, what matters is whether the bag works for your particular application.

  • Prior to using a particular cheese bag on a regular basis, you should “qualify” the bag for your process. That means running a small number of bags on machinery under standard conditions. Ideally, technical experts from your bag vendor should be present during the trial run.
  • Examine the package for an adequate, leak-proof seal. Put it through your standard storage and distribution process. Only then can you be confident that this particular bag works with your manufacturing process.
  • If anything in your process changes, you should re-qualify your packaging material. In order to keep your cost as low as possible, packaging materials are usually designed with a very small margin of error. Even something as simple as a new sealing bar can be reason for re-qualifying your packaging material. This gives you the best guarantee that the manufacturer will stand behind the bag in the event of a failure. Getting the manufacturer’s agreement in advance that their bags are qualified for use in your process will protect you and reduce the possibility of disputes later on.

For more information about packaging, click here.

About Our Learning Center
To make informed decisions in the food, dairy and beverage industries, you need to have in-depth product knowledge and a variety of educational resources. Our Learning Center is designed to help you with all that. Visit our Learning Center today!

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From the Learning Center: All About Coagulants

Posted by Marketing Dept.  –  Cheese & Dairy Products, Packaging & Ingredients
May 15, 2013

DairyVital to the cheese-making process, coagulants cause milk to separate into curds and whey. Although acid alone is used to coagulate some “fresh” cheeses, such as cottage cheese; the traditional cheese-making coagulants are enzymes. The main source until recent times has been rennet extracted from the abomasum or fourth stomach of the calf. Its principal enzyme is called rennin or chymosin.

Chymosin added to milk, cleaves a specific peptide bond in casein, the most important milk protein. Casein, which exists in complexes called micelles, has four components. One of these, kappacasein, stabilizes the whole complex against coagulation, an action caused by the flocculating effect of calcium ions. When chymosin splits kappacasein, the rest of the casein micelle becomes unstable. It coagulates – or gels – due to the presence of calcium in the milk.

Coagulation of milk depends on the pH, temperature, casein, and calcium content. As a coagulant, chymosin has shown distinct advantages over other proteolytic enzymes (pepsin, trypsin and papain) in producing a smooth, high-yielding curd, free from bitterness or off-flavors. High chymosin content in rennet has been shown in studies to produce better cheese yields.

Nelson-Jameson offers a variety of enzymes suitable for commercial production of cheese. They are microbial coagulants and 100% pure chymosin produced by r-DNA fermentation technology. Call our ingredient product specialists for more information or an in-plant trial at 800-826-8302.

For information on Coagulants, click here.

About Our Learning Center
To make informed decisions in the food, dairy and beverage industries, you need to have in-depth product knowledge and a variety of educational resources. Our Learning Center is designed to help you with all that. Visit our Learning Center today!

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The Dairy Security Act: An Examination of the Debate

Posted by Mathew J. Bartkowiak, Ph.D.  –  Cheese & Dairy Products, Dairy Farm, General
May 8, 2013

Milk Glass

If you have seen “Goodlatte” in the news lately, it might not be in reference to Starbucks. Instead, Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va and David Scott, D-Ga are in the news due to their proposed “Dairy Freedom Act.” In response to the Dairy Security Act, the proposed Act, according to the Capital Press, offers margin insurance for “producers to reduce catastrophic losses. But it does so without a milk supply-management element.” Numerous manufacturers and retailers have signed on in support of the proposed Act, including the National Grocers Association, the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, in addition to many more.

Despite these endorsements, the Act has also drawn some criticism.   A piece on the PR Newswire explains: “Opponents of supply management believe it would increase domestic prices on dairy products above international prices, make the American dairy industry less competitive and bring more government regulation and intervention into milk markets.”  Those opposed to the Act include the National Milk Producers Federation.

As a producer, processor, retailer, etc., you can check in with your respective professional organization(s) for their stance on the debate. Rep. Goodlatte has provided a link to the complete text on his website.  You can access that link here.

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The Complete Package

Posted by Nelson-Jameson, Inc.  –  Laboratory & QA/QC
May 1, 2013

MP900216058In our area we get a lot of requests for “everything needed to set up a  lab”. Without information about the products being manufactured and specific tests to be run, this question is virtually impossible to answer. Even though meat, cheese and catsup all require accurate pHs each product requires a different combination of meter, electrode, cleaning solutions, buffers and temperature compensation. Of course location of test and capability of analyst have to be taken into account as well.

The same is true for salt, somatic cell counts, butter fat etc. etc. Unlike most of our competitors who sell individual components of tests, we sell test systems. We have this advantage because of our focus as a company on specific markets. This allows us to acquire knowledge necessary to take this approach to marketing products.

The other component of Nelson-Jameson’s success in selling specialty products suited to customer applications, are more basic qualities typical of our employees. These are interest in our customers well being combined with good questioning and listening skills. Without these traits alignment of products with applications would be disastrous failures. In all our interactions with customers from receiving telephone calls, attending our exhibits at trade shows and making sales calls, these skills make the difference between contented customers who keep coming back and quiet phones, closed doors and really boring trade shows.

When starting up a new lab, let us help – call our Technical Sales Staff at 800-826-8302.

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