We’ve all experienced it… tearing open a powdered drink mix, pouring it into a glass of water, or bottled water, and it clumps up… What’s up with that?!?! Well, it turns out the reason this happens is due to the inability of the water to penetrate the ingredients in the mix.
 
After checking with Fortitech’s in house R&D team, it was determined that the problem had to do with the rate of hydration of the nutrients used in the premix. Agglomeration was recommended as a solution to the issue. The main purpose of agglomeration is to improve certain physical properties of food powders such as bulk density, flowability, dispersibility and stability. Agglomeration is accomplished via introducing a binder (such as water) to create bridges that connect molecules together, therefore resulting in an agglomerated molecule (think compaction of snow to make a snow ball). The easiest way to explain why the drink mix clumps up is because the size of the particles (drink mixes are made up of countless particles from each ingredient) was too small to allow for adequate hydration, and thus disintegration in the water.
 
The process of agglomeration increases the surface area of each particle, which means that when they are placed in water more surface area comes in contact with the water. This allows for better hydration of each particle, which means more solubility. That solubility means each particle will disintegrate in the water.
 
Like I said, I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of us that have mixed a powdered drink mix into water—or milk for those of us with kids that like chocolate milk—have experienced the clumping of the mix when it’s placed in the liquid. Most of the time, giving it a good shake or stir takes care of the situation. However, if that doesn’t work, the issue regarding its ability to dissolve is something the consumer will remember during their next visit to the supermarket, and may in fact prompt them to select a competitor’s product over yours. When creating a custom nutrient premix, Fortitech’s purchasing and technical teams work with our suppliers to ensure the most appropriate market form of each nutrient/ingredient are selected to meet the goal of the product in a cost-efficient and time-saving manner.
 
Agglomeration is just one of the many onsite R&D capabilities that Fortitech can recommend to ensure a customer’s premix does not alter the end product’s taste, mouthfeel, stability, homogeneity and shelf life.