Lyras' Technology
OUR ability to treat opaque liquids with uv-light
Since its discovery, UV-light has demonstrated its potential to inactivate foodborne pathogenic microorganisms without causing notable loss of sensory and nutritional value of food products. This property has led to the widespread application of UV-light in today’s food processing industry. However, opaque liquids have so far remained out of reach.
Through years of rigorous research, Lyras has overcome this challenge and are now proud to present our solution that we call cold pasteurization.
Cold Pasteurization
Bringing food technology into the 21st century
For the last 150 years, pasteurization has saved millions of lives by heating liquid foods and thereby eradicating the bacteria within. This allowed for the preservation of easily corruptible foods. Though revolutionary, pasteurization is not without drawbacks. It is a time-consuming process, it lowers the product quality and consumes vast amounts of energy.
Curiosity led to the invention.
The positive impact on our climate and higher product
quality let me to pursue the business.
Rasmus Mortensen, CEO & FOUNDER
The Benefits
A detailed description
Energy Efficient
Approximately 25% of the total energy consumption within dairies originates from the pasteurization and centrifugation processes. Lyras’ cold pasteurization technology replaces conventional pasteurization and centrifugation equipment, and thereby decreases energy consumption by more than 90% for HTST pasteurization. In the case of UHT pasteurization, the energy required is almost doubled, resulting in even greater energy savings.
Higher Quality
Cold pasteurization only adds a miniscule amount of energy directly into the product, in comparison to conventional pasteurization. The process is thereby a much gentler treatment as the product’s exposure is only 0,02% that of conventionally pasteurized product. The product is treated in only a few seconds, and retains its natural taste and composition.
Healthy
As the product stays chilled while undergoing treatment for a few seconds, the nutritional values are retained, as vitamins and proteins are preserved to a higher degree. Today, especially in cheese production, different preservatives are added to extend product shelf life. Cold pasteurization brings the potential to reduce and possibly eliminate the need for these added preservatives.
Extended Shelf Life
Cold pasteurization achieves a higher reduction in bacteria than conventional HTST pasteurization. Replacing the HTST treatment with our cold pasteurization solution, 99,9999% of bacteria is inactivated, including the removal of heat resistant spores and bacteria. This reduction will allow the product to be stored for longer periods than is possible today.
No Fossil Fuels
Conventional pasteurization equipment requires a vast amount of energy to both warm up, retain the high temperature and cool down the product. These processes are to a large extent dependent on energy stemming from natural gas. By eliminating the heating- and cooling process, and relying only on electricity, cold pasteurization can be driven solely by sustainable energy.
No Waste in Production
Cold pasteurization is one simple continuous process to treat both spores and bacteria within liquid foods. Today, this requires multiple processes where both product and water are wasted. Cold pasteurization treats the product in one closed system, where no product is extruded to remove spores, and less water is used. For instance, achieving a higher reduction of bacteria within milk, provides dairies greater control of the bacterial culture within the processed milk. This has a big impact on the subsequent processing of the milk in cheese production, as achieving a higher bacterial reduction increases the dairies control of the cheeses bacterial culture, and thereby decreasing the rate of failed batches.
Pasteurization Made Simple
The surrounding infrastructure complexity of Lyras’ cold pasteurization system is significantly lower and takes up less space than conventional equipment. This size reduction is so significant that it will eliminate the need for expansion in many liquid food processing plants dealing with space constraints. Cold pasteurization not only eliminates the pasteurization process, but also the need for centrifugation, currently required to extract spores. Cold pasteurization is superior in its capabilities, as it has a decreased processing time and a significantly higher uptime. The system provides a continious flow, is easy to implement in a “plug and play” fashion and compatible with standard CIP (Clean-in-place) cleaning procedures.
For Everyone
The capabilities of cold pasteurization set greater standards for public health and safety. Today, people in many parts of the world do not have access to safe properly treated foods. This leads to a range of diseases caused by insufficient food hygiene. Cold pasteurization brings the opportunity to treat liquid foods in more remote locations like small villages that have limited space and sparse access to energy. Treated products do not have to be chilled post processing as the bacterial contents are on pair with UHT treated products, removing the need for a cold storage supply chain. This capability will have an enormous impact on the public health and food safety in many parts of the developing world.