- Background
- What we're looking for
- What we can offer you
- Q&A
We are an international food manufacturer seeking innovative technologies that improve product consistency and enable more responsive quality control across manufacturing operations.
Gravy viscosity is an important quality attribute in food products containing meat pieces in gravy. It influences product consistency, flow behavior, appearance, and overall presentation. Variations in raw materials, ingredient preparation, temperature, or processing conditions can make the gravy thicker or thinner than intended, resulting in inconsistent finished-product quality.
Although more accurate laboratory methods are available during product development, they often require specialized equipment, technical expertise, sample preparation, or lengthy testing procedures, making them unsuitable for routine manufacturing use.
This creates an opportunity for rapid measurement technologies that provide objective, repeatable results and enable production teams to identify viscosity deviations early and make timely quality or process control decisions.
We are looking for rapid measurement technologies that can objectively assess the viscosity, consistency, flow behavior, or predictive indicators of the final texture of gravy in semi-finished or finished meat-containing food products. Solutions may operate in-line, at-line, near-line, or offline and should be suitable for routine manufacturing use. Solutions should enable the early/rapid detection of process or quality deviations and support timely manufacturing and quality-control decisions.
Solutions may directly measure viscosity or use a scientifically supported indicator, and produce results that can be correlated with an established laboratory reference method or defined product-quality classification.
- Automated or semi-automated flow-distance, flow-time, displacement, or consistometer methods
- Inline or online continuous measurement technologies
- Non-contact or minimally invasive methods
- Other rapid measurement technologies
- Other sensor-based measurement technologies
- Rapid at-line or near-line methods
- Capable of measuring/monitoring product viscosity, consistency, flow behavior, or a relevant proxy with accuracy in semi-finished or finished products
- Demonstrates a scientifically supported relationship between the measured output and the target quality attribute
- Has the potential to correlate with an established laboratory reference based on rotational rheometry, e.g., using a Brookfield-type instrument
- Suitable for, or adaptable to, routine food-manufacturing use with practical sampling, minimal sample preparation (no extended sample conditioning), and limited calibration, cleaning, and maintenance
- Automatically records results and compares them with established quality ranges
- Commercially available or supported by a clear pathway to an industrial proof of concept
- Delivers an actionable result within 5 minutes
- Demonstrated in gravies, sauces, soups, particulate foods, or other non-homogeneous food systems
- Detects viscosity changes or process drift in sufficient time to support corrective action
- Measures the product without requiring complete separation of the gravy from the meat pieces
- Portable or readily deployable across different production locations
- Supports continuous inline or online measurement without interrupting production
- Methods requiring highly specialized laboratory personnel for routine operation
- Technologies limited to clear or homogeneous liquids without a credible pathway to use in non-homogeneous gravy-based food products
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