TOP BV

🔬 We’re back! Continuing from our previous post on RF sterilization, let’s dive deeper into the science behind this revolutionary technology. Our advanced 📻Radio Frequency (RF) sterilization technology uses electromagnetic waves at a specific frequency (27.12 MHz in our systems) to generate heat within food products. This heat is produced through the interaction of RF energy with the ionic compounds naturally present in food, such as salts and minerals. Unlike microwaves, which rely on the dipolar rotation of water molecules to generate heat, RF operates at a different wavelength, allowing it to penetrate deeper into the product and achieve more uniform heating. How RF Works: 🔋 Energy Interaction: RF energy interacts with ions and salts in food, creating friction and generating heat. This process heats the product from the inside out. 🔍 Depth of Penetration: RF’s interaction with ionic compounds allows for deeper, more uniform penetration compared to microwaves, which primarily target water molecules. This reduces the risk of cold spots and ensures more consistent heating. 📡 Controlled Wavelength: RF operates at a different wavelength than microwaves, allowing it to penetrate deeper into products, ensuring even heating throughout, including denser food types. Why RF Is Different: Traditional sterilization methods, such as microwaves or steam, heat food from the surface to the core. This can result in overprocessing and overcooking the surface before the center reaches the required temperature. RF’s ability to heat uniformly ensures complete sterilization throughout the product, while preserving its natural qualities such as flavor, texture, and nutrients. Key Benefits of RF Sterilization: 🌡️ Deep and Uniform Heating: RF energy reaches deeper into the product, ensuring even heating, including the core. 🎯 Consistency and Precision: By utilizing ionic compounds, RF provides consistent heating, minimizing the risk of undercooked areas and cold spots🍽️ Quality Preservation: The gentle, controlled RF process ensures that the food retains its natural flavor, texture, and nutritional value while achieving precise sterilization. Why These Graphs Matter: 📈Graph 1: Shows how RF moves salts to generate heat, compared to how microwaves move water molecules. 📈 Graph 2: Compares RF, Microwave (MW), and Infrared (IR) in terms of wavelength, penetration depth, and power density, reinforcing why RF is a superior choice for uniform heating. As we continue to advance this technology, we see immense potential to revolutionize food safety standards and provide a superior alternative to traditional sterilization methods. In our next RF post, we will specifically explore the RF-inline. Interested? Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website: www.top-bv.net

🧀 Imagine vegan Gouda style cheese that's actually good.......DONE! 🍕 I don't believe it! That's the general reaction we got from our cheese loving colleagues. The cheese haters amongst us displayed aptly disgusted facial expressions instead; indeed another sign of development success. What got them so passionate? It's our latest breakthrough in vegan and plant-based cheese development. It doesn't merely cut, grate, slice and dice like cheese, even the mouthfeel is uncannily similar to the original. Take a look at these pictures; you'll find a supreme texture canvas for a whole range of possible diversification. Just adding natural colour and flavour we can make anything from grated pizza cheese, to blocks of Gouda to slices of Cheddar. But it's not just the the application range of our foundation recipe that is highly versatile, because the actual nutritional formulation is likewise conveniently adaptable. How does this show? Well, crucially the protein content can be cranked up all the way to a whopping 9%, while neither the cheese's unique texture nor its oil content is dependant on saturated fats like coconut or palm. And as a bonus the vegan cheese can even be made completely allergen-free, wow! All this makes the robust formulation a perfect test bed for any proteins, oils, starches, colours and flavours looking for the perfect showcase application. Interested in this development, either as an easily scalable concept, or as a research substrate to screen your ingredient functionality within? Simply drop us a message via [email protected]

🌟 Introducing Our Breakthrough in Food Sterilization Technology🌟 We’re back with an exciting follow-up to our earlier post about innovations in food sterilization! Today, we’re diving into the game-changing potential of 📻Radio Frequency (RF) technology in food processing. We’re proud to offer two specialized platforms: RF-inline and RF-inpack. Both are fully electric systems, providing energy-efficient, sustainable sterilization solutions that enhance food quality while reducing processing time. 🎯To take this technology even further, we’re actively seeking a strategic partner to join us in its development and optimization. Here’s what makes our RF technology truly unique: ★ Ultra-Fast Sterilization: Achieves target temperature in record time, drastically reducing processing and heating duration. ★ True Uniform Heating: Unlike conventional methods, RF ensures homogeneous heat distribution, eliminating cold spots and preventing overheating, a key advantage! ★ Quality Preservation: Maintains more natural flavors, textures, and nutrients, delivering fresh and high-quality products to consumers. How? Have a look at our graphs. To better understand where our technology fits in the food processing landscape, we’ve included two insightful visuals: 🕕A time-temperature graph comparing a conventional retort and an RF heating system; demonstrating that RF applies a significantly lower heat load to the product, preserving quality while ensuring safety. 📈 A graph comparing shelf life ad quality across various methods, showing where RF technology fits the gap by balancing extended shelf life with high quality, outperforming conventional heating. This is just the beginning! In future posts, we’ll explore how RF works, its benefits compared to traditional methods, and share much more! Don’t miss the chance to connect with us if you’re interested in partnering on the future of food sterilisation. Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website: www.top-bv.net

🎅 Gezondere Sinterklaaslekkernijen!🍬 De Sint is weer in Nederland aangekomen, en dat betekent genieten van het klassieke Sinterklaassnoepgoed zoals strooigoed, kruidnoten, pepernoten, taaitaai en speculaas! 🎉 Maar wist je dat deze lekkernijen vaak: •   Een hoog koolhydraatgehalte (tot wel 80%), •   Een suikergehalte van rond de 50%, en •   Een hoog gehalte aan verzadigd vet bevatten? Dit maakt ze minder vriendelijk voor de glycemische index en voor een gebalanceerd dieet. Bij TOP BV geloven wij dat genieten van traditioneel snoepgoed ook verantwoord kan. Onze productontwikkelaars werken aan innovatieve recepturen die: ✅ Koolhydraten vervangen door vezels en plantaardige eiwitten, voor een lagere glycemische index. ✅ De hoeveelheid toegevoegde suikers verminderen, zonder in te leveren op smaak. ✅ Verzadigde vetten aanpakken door gezondere alternatieven te gebruiken. Met onze expertise in koolhydraat vervangende ingrediënten en plantaardige oplossingen zorgen we ervoor dat Sinterklaaslekkernijen zowel lekker als voedzaam kunnen zijn. Zo kun je met een gerust hart blijven genieten van het feestseizoen, maar dan op een gezondere manier! Neem contact met ons op via [email protected] of bezoek www.top-bv.net

🚀 Exciting Announcement: Our new info-series on RF Sterilisation Technology At TOP we are thrilled to announce the launch of a new info-series that will take you through our innovative 📻 RF sterilisation technology! Over the coming weeks, we’ll share how this cutting-edge solution is transforming the food industry, improving both processing efficiency and product quality, all while enhancing sustainability and reducing energy costs. Throughout this series, we will explore 🔔 RF-inline and 📣 RF-inpack, the science behind RF energy, real-world applications, and the tangible benefits this technology offers to food producers. Plus, we will share insights from pilot results and explain how we’re looking for a development partner to further advance these technologies. Here’s what’s coming up: 1        Unveiling a new approach – The core concepts behind RF sterilisation and its game-changing potential. 2        Decoding the technology – Understanding how RF heating works and why it’s more efficient than conventional methods. 3        Exploring RF-inline – How our continuous solution is designed to scale with high-volume food production. 4        Introducing RF-inpack – A closer look at how in-package sterilisation helps preserve food safety and freshness. 5        Expanding RF technology – Custom applicator designs for diverse food processing needs 6        Empowering Food Developers – to create high-quality products 7        Sustainability at its core – How RF sterilisation contributes to energy efficiency and reduces the carbon footprint. 8        Real-world insights – Pilot results that demonstrate the effectiveness of RF sterilisation in practice. 9        Shaping the future together – a summary of the past posts We’re excited to share this journey with you and demonstrate how RF sterilisation can revolutionise food production. Stay tuned for more in-depth insights, and don’t miss the chance to connect with us if you’re interested in partnering on the future of food sterilisation. Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website: www.top-bv.net

🚄 To FIE or not to FIE, that is the question. ☎ Two colleagues of the TOP NPD team are visiting the FIE in Frankfurt this week. Want to meet them? They'll be combing the halls in search of the best new ingredients, but will also be on the lookout for development leads and new contacts. For a chance to get acquainted with our TOP staff in person do send us a message with your contact details at [email protected] Visit https://lnkd.in/ewXJtiZx for more info on the event

🥣 No soup for you? 🥘 In search of adding more protein to our diet, we wondered: where have all the real soups gone, or were they never really here? At TOP BV we've been passionately working on facilitating the protein transition through development of plant-based meat and dairy analogues, but of course beans and pulses are also a very good way to sustainably boost protein intake. Trouble is, on their own these natural protein sources don't tend to inspire much culinary creativity (though possibly that applies mostly to the flexitarians amongst us). However, when integrated into a rich and tasty soup, those same basic beans and pulses tend to be favourably received and so we decided to check what's available out there to set a benchmark. We were ultimately disappointed by the often generic blandness of most commercially available recipes, the repeated basis built on top of usual suspect "tomato" and the fairly low bean count (yes, in even the allegedly "richly filled" soups). We felt we could do better and are now developing recipes that put the beans and pulses centre stage, focusing on the protein source as main ingredient, with excellent texture (bite) post-retort and a more diverse flavour and colour pallet than the tomato red shown in the pictured examples. If that sounds like a bandwagon your company might want to jump onto--or if you have a similar golden standard you could use some help with to get closer to--by all means send us a message at [email protected]

At TOP, our technical process development team offers expertise in designing efficient production systems, whether as stand-alone projects or as a preliminary phase of a larger setup. Our services include: ✏️ Process flow diagrams (PFDs) to visualize your production flow 🛠️ Comprehensive process requirement packages 📈 Detailed design calculations and underlying assumptions ⚙️ Draft component lists to kickstart planning 📐 Schematic designs for factories and machinery to bring your ideas to life We’re here to support you at every stage, from initial concepts to fully operational facilities. Let’s work together to make your project a success! Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website: www.top-bv.net

🍳 Looking for effective egg replacements in your plant-based meat alternatives or bakery products? Want to create delicious, plant-based scrambled eggs or omelettes? TOP offers tailor-made egg replacement solutions! 🍳 With the growing interest in plant-based diets, the need for alternatives to chicken eggs has never been greater. Other reasons for replacing eggs include improving food safety, availability, affordability, and reducing the risk of allergens. Chicken eggs are remarkably versatile, with unique functions across many food categories. In a range of applications, eggs play crucial roles— egg yolks act as emulsifiers in mayonnaise, while whites provide leavening in cakes and binding in meat balls. When heated, egg white (or albumin) forms a thermo-irreversible firm gel that provides structure in recipes like custards, quiches, and egg dishes. Given these diverse functionalities, replacing eggs in food requires targeted, application-specific solutions. TOP always first evaluates the role of egg in a the food product to determine which function should be replicated by an alternative ingredient. With years of experience testing a wide range of ingredients and processing methods, we have gained valuable knowledge that allows us to provide high-quality, affordable and practical solutions in a short time. For plant-based meat alternatives, TOP has extensive experience replacing egg albumin in products like burgers, sausages, and nuggets—without compromising taste, texture, or nutrition. In fact, many of our vegan products exceed the quality of their vegetarian counterparts, thanks to our fat technology that adds juiciness and a satisfying bite without using hard, saturated fats. Interested in learning more about our egg replacement solutions? We would love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected] or visit www.top-bv.net.

🌱 Discover the potential of hybrid dairy with us! 🐄   In recent years, the NPD team at TOP has developed a wide range of plant-based dairy alternatives — including analogues for pourable and Greek style yoghurt, (cream) cheese, and (barista) milk. These cutting edge new products are very similar to their dairy counterparts, yet some of the unique properties of dairy products are very difficult to replicate exactly. We have observed that customers are still looking for these specific dairy properties and also feel the need to contribute to a lower carbon footprint. That's where hybrid dairy comes in! 🥛 🧀   By combining the typical taste and mouthfeel of dairy products with the lower environmental impact of their plant-based counterparts yields the best of both worlds. To that effect the TOP team applies years of expertise in developing dairy analogues together with the more conventional knowledge of processing and preserving dairy products. The resulting synergy between plant-based and dairy products appreciable for basic products like milk and yoghurt, will be even more significant for (hard) cheeses. When comparing the currently available plant-based hard cheeses to dairy cheeses we find their texture, mouthfeel, flavour, and nutritional value often do not align, with expectations of customers remaining largely unaddressed. The nutritional requirements are especially left wanting, with plant based cheeses usually displaying a high content of saturated fat content, carbohydrates and sugar, while  protein remains largely absent. When replacing dairy, meat and fish, TOP consistently aims to match or enhance the nutritional value compared to the originals, and with hybrid versions all facets can be brought closer to the golden standard while also providing a sustainable solution.   Want to join us on the hybrid dairy adventure? Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website.