Guerin Systems guided tour within the International Symposium on Spray Dried Dairy Products
Following
the previous highly successful symposia in this series — Rennes/FR (2001), Cork/IE (2004), San Francisco/US (2007) and Melbourne/AU (2009) — the forthcoming IDF/INRA International Symposium on Spray Dried Dairy Products is to be held in Saint-Malo/France from 19 to 21 June 2012.
For the very first time, the 2012 event is organized by INRA, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research — as research institution, in collaboration with IDF, the International Dairy Federation — as the inter- national dairy industry platform. This event aims to bring together research and industry leaders to share ideas and information about new developments in two complementary fields of science and technology – the manufacture of dairy powders and the functionality of these products as food ingredients.
The translation of research findings into industrial practice will also facilitate the development of better modeling and control of spray drying processes and the application of new alternative technologies for the manufacture of dried dairy ingredients.
The event organizers also wanted to offer participants industrial site visits. Our company Guerin Systems, specialist in powder handling, is one of those sites and offers a tour of his company June 18, 2012 (Powder Institute visit)
The Process Development Centre – also known as the Powder Institute – offers you a unique way to simulate any kind of powder handling process, test many sensitive products and validate your future production line.
The Powder Institute, located in Le May, France, includes a pilot plant and laboratory, where we encourage you to submit your products and requirements to achieve a safe, optimized industrial solution.
The lab
In our lab we can determine powder properties and 
characteristics, e.g. using laser granulometry measurements as well as ring shear testing.
The results are then used as input data in our engineering calculations for all projects. Here we also analyse powder results from trials conducted in the pilot plant. To date, we’ve analysed some 4000 products, dairy to baby food and sugar, flour and mixed recipes…
The pilot plant
The 
pilot plant is mainly dedicated to validating process solutions and checking the feasibility of new settings, as well as developing new equipment and process solutions for R&D purposes. The pilot plant is organized around pneumatic conveying systems using different technologies, vacuum or pressure, dilute or dense phase. Then, individual flexible functions, e.g. mixing, sifting, dosing, big bag unloading etc, are added according to your process. Process functions are used as modules for reproducing real situations with machine combinations. This small-scale validation testing has proven to be highly reliable when translating to the final plant design.
To date, 100 participants from around the world have registered! (Nestle, Frontera, Arla Foods, Ingredia, Laita, Friesland Campina, Wyeth, Régilait, Eurial …) This success reflects the reputation of our company in the field of powders processing and recognition by the greatest of our ability to become their partner.
