Filtration plant lowers dairy costs and lifts quality, claims GEA

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Significantly lower production costs and improved product consistency are the twin benefits claimed for a reverse osmosis filtration plant introduced at one of Saudi Arabia’s leading dairies.

The new equipment installed by Danish filtration specialist, GEA Filtration has significantly reduced the Almarai dairy company’s reliance on large quantities of expensive imported milk powder.

Previously, imported milk powder was necessary to supplement standard milk in the production of premium products such as yoghurt, labneh (strained yoghurt) and deserts.

But following the installation of the reverse osmosis equipment, the dairy can now concentrate its own surplus milk to replace the volatilely-priced imported milk powder during production.

Concentrating whey
The reverse osmosis process is a separation technique which uses a semi permeable living cell membrane where only water can pass through. “This process requires hydraulic pressure higher than osmonic pressure to diffuse water in the opposite direction toward the higher concentration,” according to statement by GEA Filtration.

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