Everyone is familiar with the health benefits of probiotics, but how are high-quality probiotics produced? The following is a brief introduction to the probiotic powder processing and production process, which is divided into the following stages.
1. Strain storage: Pure probiotic strain isolates are stored in extremely cold liquid nitrogen refrigerators, thereby maintaining the integrity of the strains indefinitely.
2. Strain transfer: After the pure probiotic strain isolate is transferred to the seeds in a sterile state, the fermentation process begins.
3. Fermentation amplification: Inoculate the bacteria into an intermediate fermenter containing sterilized culture medium under aseptic conditions, and then transfer it to the final production-scale fermentation tank. This step can more efficiently utilize the large-scale production system.
4. Large-scale fermentation production: Commercial large-scale production provides economies of scale.
5. Preliminary bacterial concentration: Use gentle technology to concentrate the probiotic bacteria 20-30 times, thereby reducing shear force and air mixing.
6. Strain freezing/granulation: Concentrated probiotic strains are quickly frozen into small pellets.
7. Freeze-drying: The final probiotic cell concentrate is obtained through freeze-drying. Optimize the process parameters according to the requirements of each strain to ensure the maximum retention of bacterial number, viability, and stability for later preparation of probiotic freeze-dried powder.
8. Grinding and mixing: In a stainless steel container on a multi-directional rotating arm, the freeze-dried concentrate is ground and then mixed to achieve uniformity of the probiotic powder.
9. Packaging: Freeze-dried and concentrated probiotics can be made into single-strain or composite-strain products in large packages of various sizes by selecting various carriers.
10. Finished product
The above large-scale packaged products can be further processed into probiotic powder, tablets, capsules, drops, liquid, and other probiotic preparations. It can also be added to probiotic products in the form of production and processing end-consumer products such as various foods and beverages. Inactivated probiotics can also be directly added to food and beverages directly in the production process or involved in fermentation to make various probiotic foods and probiotics. Beverages, probiotic gummies, etc.