August is upon us, often hot, often humid, and often marked by late summer gatherings, vacations, fairs, and festivals. These are summer’s Dog Days, but they are rarely lazy.
Whether you grill marinated flank steaks or tofu, and whether you cool down with a soda, sparkling water, or a treat from a passing ice cream truck, you benefit from compressed air.
Compressed air plays a vital role in safely preparing, packaging, shipping and storing the foods we eat and the beverages we consume, in the home and on the road.
DIRECT & INDIRECT CONTRIBUTIONS
Compressed Air Testing Kits capture air samples, which manufacturers submit for independent analysis. It’s all part of keeping our food and beverage system safe and efficient.
Modern food and beverage manufacturing facilities can feature complex networks of belts, pipes, ovens, and refrigeration units. They handle raw ingredients, powders, creams, liquids, and finished products. At every stage of the process, compressed air may be utilized for the conveyance of the product or adding one element to another. Compressed air may blow out a bottle or packaging unit. It may help regulate temperature or humidity level within a storage zone.
To optimize safety, food and beverage producers check their compressed air to ensure that oil, water, and other potential contamination sources are within safe boundaries within the air system, whether that compressed air directly comes into contact with the product or has an indirect point of contact with the product.
Every facility may operate slightly different, as one product may requires refrigeration while another requires a desiccant dryer. The dewpoint in one section of a product handling line may need to be different at another section.
To properly monitor these systems, manufacturers utilize many quality controls-one of which is the collection of compressed air samples through special testing kits. These kits are subsequently expressed to an independent testing facility for evaluation of potential hydrocarbon content, moisture, oil or particulates, etc.
TRI’S CONTRIBUTIONS
TRI Air Testing provides independent analysis of compressed air samples from food and beverage operations. For one-product shops and small producers on up to major, international, multi-brand manufacturers, TRI provides expertise and science in compressed air testing to ensure fast, accurate results.
For most tests, results are available within 24 hours of receipt of the sample.
It’s all part of how the food and beverage system we depend on remains safe. That safety and dependability is also part of how these companies secure their products’ reputations for quality and fresh, consistent taste.
Compressed air, in its seemingly small way, plays an enormous role in it all.
