Blog 7 The Bioprocess

The Bioprocess

At this stage in the semester we were pretty confident that we had found a product that was feasible and that we had enough information from the small scale fermentation and the research conducted that we could mould a fully functioning bioprocess. Having finally ironed out our differences of opinion, we met a new one. Again these glass jars were the pain in the back. To make a production of a beverage viable you either produce at high volume for reasonable selling price or produce less for a lower selling point. Producing less and having a generic product won’t work, as we have learned in the countless business modules, which have finally come to use. To use regular glass jars we would need nearly 100 to fill a 500L tank. That in my opinion was insane. Back to the internet we went and found that 10L jars can be bought, with a handle for easier manoeuvring. This at least reduced the amount of jars needed per process to 50, a much more manageable figure.

The bioprocess would begin in these jars with the kefir grains being fermented with the tested 5-10% sugar solution, then strained from the water and placed into new jars, the water would then be placed in the bioreactor where it could be treated with temperature and a final fruit syrup solution would be added for flavour and to fortify with Vitamins.

 

 

The final decided bioprocess is not the most efficient method by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a perfect fit for what we required to make the process viable and certainly allows a very broad scope for change if needed. One thing I have learned from working in industry and from our final year projects is that no process should be rigid, because if something goes wrong you need scope to be able to fix it. At the moment that process requires a lot of manual labour, which again from experience means more scope for human error, but I guess you don’t start on the top of the ladder.

At this stage it’s nearly half way through the module and I’m enjoying it, having to critically think about a process is different from just learning a generic process. From having to research so get a much wider and thorough view of what’s involved and how an industry works. One thing that has been eating at me though is my lack of computer skills and I feel that designing the website, or trying to get it to work is consuming an awful lot of time.