IN Brief:
- Andritz has introduced six modular spray dryer models with evaporation capacities from 5 to 250 kg per hour.
- The systems are aimed at pilot work, process development, industrial validation, and small-batch production.
- Powder manufacturers are looking for development platforms that reflect commercial process conditions more closely and with less disruption to production assets.
Andritz has launched a new small-scale spray drying range intended to shorten the path from formulation work to industrial production in food, dairy, and ingredient manufacturing. The Andritz Dedert line includes six models with water evaporation capacities from 5 to 250 kg per hour, covering applications from pilot trials and process optimisation through to industrial validation and small-batch manufacture.
The systems are available in both single-stage and multi-stage configurations, with the option to integrate a fluid bed where tighter control of powder properties or energy performance is required. Andritz has also built the range around a skid-mounted, plug-and-play format intended to simplify installation and commissioning. The equipment has been designed for sectors including food, dairy, nutraceuticals, and other powder-processing applications where development work has to move quickly but still produce reliable data.
Spray drying remains one of the most technically sensitive points in powder manufacture. Bench-scale success does not always translate cleanly into industrial performance. Problems often emerge around particle size, flow behaviour, stickiness, density, thermal sensitivity, or solubility once a formulation moves into a more realistic operating window. Those issues can quickly alter yield, packing performance, customer acceptance, and downstream handling.
For manufacturers working on protein-rich ingredients, specialist dairy powders, flavour carriers, nutritional systems, or functional blends, that step between the laboratory and the production dryer can be slow and expensive. Commercial dryers are valuable assets and rarely available for repeated development work. At the same time, pilot systems that sit too far away from factory conditions can leave processors with an incomplete picture of how a product will perform at scale.
Equipment suppliers have been responding by making pilot and validation systems more capable, more configurable, and more representative of industrial conditions. That trend has accelerated as product portfolios become more specialised. Ingredient manufacturers are dealing with shorter development cycles, tighter technical specifications, and more pressure to get higher-value powders into market without lengthy rounds of trial-and-error on full-scale lines.
The Andritz launch sits squarely within that change. A modular system that can be configured for different development stages gives processors more room to test process conditions, compare formulations, and build stronger data before committing to larger capital investment. It also opens opportunities for technical centres, contract developers, and toll processors supporting multiple customer projects at once.
In dairy and ingredient processing, the economics of product development are now closely tied to technical confidence. A stronger pilot and validation platform does not remove the complexity of spray drying, but it helps reduce the number of unknowns carried into industrial production. That can improve launch speed, reduce rework, and make scale-up decisions less dependent on expensive assumptions.
Manufacturers continue to push toward powders with more defined functionality, whether the end use is nutrition, bakery, beverage, dairy, or specialised food systems. As that shift continues, the equipment sitting between the lab and the factory becomes more important. Andritz’s new range is aimed directly at that point in the process.
