Prototech’s plants for brine treatment are specifically designed for mozzarella and other stretched-curd cheeses, ensuring top-quality preservation.

Prototech is a food process engineering company operating in the food industry, with a particular focus on dairy production. Several key strengths distinguish Prototech in the market, including know-how, technological innovation, customization capabilities, and the use of Industry 4.0 technologies. The company’s expertise is the result of years of experience, during which it has gained an in-depth understanding of dairy production processes and the sector’s specific needs.

Technological innovation stems from continuous research into new technological solutions aimed at optimizing production processes and ensuring maximum efficiency and safety. Customization is a key feature, as Prototech designs and builds plants tailored to meet each client’s production needs, ensuring flexibility and adaptability. All Prototech’s processing solutions are made with high-quality materials and components, following rigorous safety standards to guarantee long-term durability and reliability.

Every plant is equipped with Industry 4.0 technologies, focusing on connectivity, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, traceability, and flexibility. Prototech’s vision—and its goal—is to safeguard the characteristics and excellence of processed products through automated and controlled management of all production stages, ensuring quality, consistency, and safety for its clients.

Preserving Product Quality

In the dairy sector, brine plays a crucial role in ensuring the perfect preservation of delicate products such as dairy items. It has a technological and qualitative impact in several ways:

• Preservation – Prevents crust formation and helps maintain freshness for a longer time.
• Protection – Forms a protective outer layer around the mozzarella, ensuring a soft, smooth, and shiny texture while preserving its organoleptic properties.
• Taste – Contributes to the final flavor of the product and completes the salting process.

Prototech’s plants are typically designed for dissolving, storing, and distributing salt in production. These systems consist of two units: one for dissolving and storing concentrated brine and another for diluting and calibrating the solution for packaging. The plants are skid-mounted and equipped with devices for managing and controlling dissolution and distribution, with dosage calibration through pre-set recipes, accessible via an onboard or remote-control panel.

The only manual activity required, in the absence of robotic automation, is transferring bagged or bulk salt from storage to the dissolution unit. All plant components involved in the dissolution process are built with corrosion-resistant materials, ensuring efficiency, durability, and low maintenance costs despite exposure to brine and environmental conditions.

Industry 4.0 Plant Management

The plant includes an integrated CIP (Clean-in-Place) system and is fully Industry 4.0 compliant. The entire management process can be tracked, recorded, and made available for production, while augmented reality enables precise and rapid technical maintenance. During the design and development phases, Prototech has placed great emphasis on analyzing the liquids to be handled, both in terms of quality and quantity, as well as eliminating process inefficiencies through appropriate automation of human-product and human-process interactions.

Moreover, sustainability—both economic and energy-related—has been a key consideration in the design of dissolution, storage, and distribution processes. Prototech continuously works to improve the performance of its industrial solutions. The dissolution process typically occurs with variable concentrations, depending on physical parameters, using water suitable for the process.

The required concentrations are defined together with the client. The resulting concentrate is automatically transferred to storage tanks, from which production extracts it as needed, in a diluted and ready-to-use form. Upon request, one or more brine filtration stations can be installed. Through its brine preparation, handling, and management plants, Prototech ensures hygienic, protective, and functional preservation of products such as mozzarella or legumes, while also providing tailored assistance to meet operational and production needs.

For more information
www.prototech.it