174 Food Engineering www.foodengineeringmag.com January 2008

FIELD REPORTS

Ms. Elizabeth Fujas is founder and president of RisingSun Farms, a 22-year-old Oregon company whoseeight flagship products, Cheese Tortas, are layered

with flavorful, premium cheeses and fresh organic herbs. Herorganic, herb-rich Cheese Tortas are a favorite at high-volumechain retailers such as Whole Foods, Costco, Harry and David,Trader Joe’s and Publix.

As demand for Cheese Tortassurged last year, Southern Oregonwas in the throes of a labor short-age. Unable to boost productionby adding staff in her 20,000-sq.-f t . faci l it y, Fujas decided toincrease capacity by switching toa more ef f ic ient processingmethod. She contacted severalequipment manufac turers ,including Charles Ross & SonCompany in New York, whichmanufactures sanitary mixers.

Fujas worked side-by-side withRoss test and development labora-tory engineers to identify the opti-mal mixer design for her products.During the lab tests at Ross, Fujasstressed the need for a short mixingcycle.“In order to maintain RisingSun’s standards for purity andfreshness, we need to minimizehandling during processing,” shesays. “We don’t want to beat theproduct to death, or it will lose its fresh taste and texture.”

Working with a highly viscous product presented a signifi-cant mixing challenge. A traditional, single-planetary mixerwould require a long mixing cycle to soften seven 30-poundblocks of cold cream cheese and blend it with butter and otherviscous ingredients. A multi-shaft, high-shear mixer wouldwhip air into the cheese.

After testing a variety of mixers and agitator designs, the Rossteam came to a surprising conclusion.A 9-ft.-tall, sanitary, dou-ble planetary mixer equipped with helical “HV” blades (a mixermore commonly used to blend ultra-viscous materials such asdental sealants and plastic molding) mixed the Cheese Tortaingredients quickly and met Fujas’ exacting specifications.

“Compared w ith our oldprocess, the Ross mixer enables usto create five times the volume inhalf the time with less labor. Before,we needed two people to mix abatch of Torta ingredients. Now,one person can complete the batchin only a few minutes.”

The efficiency of this process isattr ibutable to the HV bladedesign. With a trailing slope andhelical geometry, the HV bladesmix high-viscosity materials veryquickly. The angled blades contin-uously push ingredients down intothe batch, while they also movematerial from the walls toward thecenter of the vessel. This motionpromotes complete top-to-bottomhomogeneity and close control oftemperature within the batch.

Once the mixing cycle ends, aRising Sun employee rolls the 40-

gallon vessel to a discharge station, where an automated systemdischarges the mixed ingredients into packaging equipment.Meanwhile, a clean vessel, fully charged with ingredients, isrolled into place to start the next batch. With multiple mix ves-sels on hand, cleaning, mixing and discharging can all proceedsimultaneously in a virtually continuous process.

“Rising Sun Farms has met the demand from our high-vol-ume retailers,” Fujas says.“The Ross mixer has given us room togrow without compromising quality or freshness.”◆

For more information:Chris Ross; Charles Ross & Son; 800-243-7677;cross@mixers.com.

The right mix for blended cheese

The trailing slope and helical design of the Ross mixerblade works well in this specialty cheese application,creat ing f ive t imes the product in hal f the t ime of aconventional mixer. Source: Charles Ross & Son.

High-powered mixer boostsproduction of gourmetTortas five-fold; cutsprocessing time in half.

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