A Passion for Cheese – Tested by ZwickRoell
Hochland Deutschland GmbH continuously strives to define and achieve customer-relevant quality criteria—always with the satisfied consumer in mind. Of high importance to the manufacturer: “texture analyses must be a reflection of the real thing and the test product cannot be pre-stressed.”
Cheese is their passion—and has been for more than 90 years. Since its foundation in 1927, the Hochland family business has focused on the production, refinement and distribution of cheese. Hochland provides everything that a cheese lover may want: cream cheese, hard and semi-hard cheese, processed cheese, soft cheese, white cheese and feta, cottage cheese and quark with herbs. In more than 30 countries consumers opt for the delicious Hochland products, with an appreciation for the high quality and many product innovations.
In order to achieve customer-relevant quality criteria right from the development phase, a ZwickRoell zwickiLine universal testing machine is used. It is important to determine which test specimens will be used and which parameters, e.g. indentation depth or speed, will be selected for measurement. Through custom training, employees from various Hochland locations worked with ZwickRoell on different testing possibilities for the determination of firmness and spreadability of various cream cheeses. Important influencing factors include particle sizes in the test material, different types of container shapes, the use of various test tools and the informative value of the curve progressions determined in the process.
Very important: testing is performed directly in the container, so that the test material is not pre-stressed and reliable test results can be achieved.
What truly stood out to the customer was the accuracy of the load cells, since not only the measurement parameters, but also the recipe, e.g. with or without solid pieces, are important for a significant measurement. Every little piece in the fresh cheese is clearly detected by the load cell. In addition, the load cells do not require daily calibration and are therefore ready to be used at any time, and cover a wide measurement range with high accuracy. An Eeprom in the load cell contains stored data, which allows the machine to automatically recognize it and import all relevant calibration data. Dr. Andreas Leiter, Applied Research/Coordination Technology, described the testing on cream cheese: “Our priority is to establish a realistic method that guarantees the customer consistent high quality. This includes criteria such as expected spreadability and firmness. With ZwickRoell custom training, we are now able to develop a method that helps us achieve customer-relevant quality criteria.”