NIZO Partners on Center of Excellence for Product & Process Modeling

26 Apr 2017 --- At yesterday’s Advanced Process Modelling Forum Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), the Advanced Process Modelling company, and NIZO, the world’s leading food & nutrition contract research organization, announced the formation of the Center of Excellence (CoE) for Food Product and Process Modelling.

The CoE will provide a single point service that combines mechanistic product and process modelling tools with industry-leading food characterization techniques and semi-industrial scale pilot facilities, by integrating NIZO’s expertise, pilot facilities and experience in food characterization and modelling with PSE’s gPROMS modelling platform and unit operation model libraries.

The integrated software and services solutions will result in better designed and operated processes with less variability, leading to better product quality, lower energy use and hence CO2 footprint, and more flexibility when dealing with varying raw ingredients. Over and above the manufacturing benefits, the ability to combine models and experimental data to provide accurate prediction enables food & beverage organizations to explore the formulation and manufacturing decision space rapidly and effectively to accelerate design decisions.

Products modelling suite for optimising the formulation and manufacture of formulated products, including food and pharmaceuticals, using high-fidelity process and material models of unit operations such as crystallization and spray drying combined with product performance models. PSE pioneered the Systems-based Pharmaceutics approach increasingly being adopted by major pharmaceutical companies and now being applied to food & nutrition.

NIZO, originally formed by the Dutch dairy industry but now a private and independent company, develops processes and products for food and health companies worldwide. By applying science and technology expertise in proteins, bacteria and processing at laboratory scale and in its food grade processing center in Ede, the Netherlands, NIZO’s research helps customers create competitive advantage through development of novel products and production processes.

Marc Goemans CCO at NIZO, says “we are very excited about the Center of Excellence. It offers a unique capability and allows us to provide to our customers the most advanced set of modelling tools and services for food product and process design and upscaling, based on true understanding of the underlying food science. NIZO looks forward to working with PSE to bring this capability to the market”.

Sean Bermingham, VP for PSE’s Formulated Products business unit, says “the combination of mechanistic models and experimental data is a powerful approach that helps food companies to accelerate getting the right food products to market in the most cost-effective and sustainable way. We very much look forward to working with NIZO to provide a holistic service that covers all these aspects”