Ice Cream Manufacturing
LP has been applied to ice cream mix calculations for a number of years. Between the legal and practical requirements of ice cream formulation (for example that milk solids-not-fat need to range between 9% and 12%) and the variability of each of the input ingredients (milk, sweeteners, stabilizers, and emulsifiers) a consistent product can be created through LP.
Key issues that are addressed through Formats' line of software:
- Regulatory Issues. Ice cream is a highly regulated product, with well defined standards of identity. Each of these standards have to be met.
- Desired Fat and Total Solids. These are both regulatory as well as quality issues. What kind of products are you attempting to manufacture?
- Milk Solids Not Fat (MSNF). Usually supplied by skim powder, condensed milk, and whey powder.
- Water. Can be either pure water or the water content of either skim or milk.
- Sweetener. sucrose (sugar) or corn syrup solids.
- Stabilizers. usually a gum or alginate additive.
The issues can (and are) addressed through expressing the product in terms of minimums and maximums for each of the standards for frozen dairy products. An example of these product constraints (for US products) are shown below:
| Product | Milk Fat (% min) | Min Wt/gal (lb) | Food Solids Gallon (lb) | Total Milk Solids (% min) | Stabilizer (% max) |
Emulsifier (% max) |
egg yolk (min) solids |
| Ice Cream (plain) | 10.0 | 4.5 | 1.6 | 20 | 0.5 | 0.2 | |
| French or Custard | 10.0 | 4.5 | 1.6 | 20 | 1.4 | ||
| Ice Milk | 2.0-7.0 | 4.5 | 1.3 | 11 |
Additional constraints would include water in a range of 55 to 64% and sucrose in the 10 to 14% inclusion in some products. Sometimes, the ice cream maker will use a mathematical calculation referred to as the "Pearson square" to blend two ingredients together to obtain a target composition ingredient.