Why Adoption of Single-Use Technologies Makes Sense in the Food & Beverage Industry

Producing and controlling quality in the food and beverage industry requires the right equipment and consumables. That’s why flexible production systems based on single-use technology are increasingly being adopted in the food and beverage industry.

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For food manufacturers, it’s important that quality comes first. The right equipment – always sterile and designed to help ensure optimal processes – must be high on the list of essentials for creating a quality product. A clear industry trend¹ shows food manufacturers moving away from equipment that requires extra steps for sterilization, and away from consumables that pose a risk of contamination when transferred into cleanrooms, toward disposable, single-use equipment and materials.

The bioprocesses or biological cell-production processes used to create food additives or synthetic foods, such as alternative proteins, face many of the same issues that biopharma product development does. Each step in the process must remain controlled to ensure the product meets its critical quality attributes. You need sterile equipment for fermentation, replication, concentration, filtration, and testing.

Why the Growth in Single-Use Technology?

The advent of single-use systems has challenged the established cycle of re-using equipment (primarily stainless steel) and promises a new approach to sterile manufacturing. Technological advances in single-use, sterile disposable technologies, such as bag chambers, connectors, tubing, and filter capsules – either as individual entities or complete systems – are making this option not only cost-effective but also less risky for manufacturers.

Single-use technology has been used in the life science industry for decades and has become a standard. Most industry projections foresee that growth continuing. Various estimates for the growth of the single-use bioprocessing market range from USD 14.83 billion in 2021²
to USD 20.8 billion by 2026³ (up from USD 8.2 billion in 2021) – a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.5%.

Unlike traditional equipment, single-use equipment (which is generally made of plastic parts sterilized by gamma irradiation) is used once and then discarded

Over more than a decade of combined industry experience, the benefits of single-use vs. fixed stainless steel have been demonstrated, including lower capital investment and operational costs and greater flexibility.

Biopharma Process Online1 

Some reasons process manufacturers are switching to single-use equipment include:

• Eliminate cleaning requirements
• Decrease the risk of cross-contamination
• Reduce capital investment in facilities and equipment
• Shorten the time it takes to get a facility up and running
• Gain flexibility with a modular approach

A single-use system makes it possible to establish bioprocessing and multi-scale manufacturing more quickly and using the same space. From basic storage bags to sophisticated bioreactors, single-use equipment is now available for nearly all bioprocessing steps and uses less space.

Benefits of Single-Use Processing Equipment

Single-use equipment solves many of the problems and risks associated with reusable equipment like stainless steel bioreactors or purification instruments, especially regarding clean-in-place (CIP) and sterilize-in-place (SIP) processes.

Sterilizing equipment involves time-consuming, expensive, energy-intensive processes, requires a large footprint, and leads to occasional control failures. Among the risks associated with such control errors are cross contamination (avoided with single-use systems because disposables provide a closed system); failure to achieve sterility, for example using a wet autoclave for stainless steel vessels; and contamination ingress, as when connecting a vessel to a vessel.

Single-use equipment for food and beverage production solves several common issues and delivers many benefits. Some of these include:

• Increased speed to market. Single-use systems support a faster time to market since it’s easier to duplicate runs compared to reusable equipment. There is less downtime between the runs, no risk of cross-contamination with sealed bags and tubes, less risk of human error in processes, and no equipment issues during sterilize-in-place (SIP).
• Greater flexibility. If a manufacturer needs to produce multiple products in one facility, switch equipment over to other ingredients, or scale up or down quickly according to ingredient availability, having the option to create a custom design or set up with single-use products is a huge advantage. In addition, single-use equipment allows production in facilities without access to steam, purified water, or waste recycling, which basically means it can be implemented anywhere. The need for a cleanroom process is removed, with sterile equipment and bags that ensure that ingredients are never exposed to contaminants.
• Lower capital expenditures and utilities.  The capital expenses needed to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, plants, buildings, technology, or equipment is reduced with single-use systems. As mentioned above, there is no need for a cleanroom, or expenditures to create sterilization systems, which reduces costs from water usage, electricity, biohazard clean up and more. It also means facilities can have a smaller overall footprint, potentially reducing real estate costs and tax outlays as well.
• Reduced risk of cross-contamination. A key benefit of using single-use equipment and consumables is the reduction in cross-contamination. With fresh, sterilized equipment, bags and tubes for every process, the risk of introducing contaminants is minimal. That means processes are more successful, with less waste and higher quality on a consistent basis.
• Sustainability and energy savings. The carbon footprint created by single-use consumables is more than offset by the savings single-use systems generate through reduced use of water, steam and chemical products for cleaning. By using less water and energy, and introducing fewer chemicals for flushing the system, single-use systems create a more environmentally friendly process.
• Lower labor costs. With a shorter set-up and breakdown times, elimination of cleaning steps, and no need to have dedicated personnel for these steps, labor costs associated with many production processes can be reduced. In addition, single-use systems eliminate the need to involve facility staff for calibration of equipment (since you don’t have to recalibrate single-use probes). Overall, single-use equipment means less time and labor for equipment maintenance.

Types of Single-Use Equipment for Food & Beverage Uses

From fermentation, filtration and purification to food ingredient replication, single-use equipment streamlines the critical processes and steps that food and beverage manufacturers need to produce quality products.

Within the Sartorius product line, food and beverage manufacturers can find solutions designed specifically to support a range of processes including:

• Fermentation
• Filtration
• Purification
• Crossflow
• Data analytics
• Fluid management technologies
• Services

Single-use fermentation instruments include both the Ambr^® and Biostat^® single-use bioreactor lines, which bring decades of Sartorius biotech experience to food and beverage production needs.

Filtration lines include both prefilter cartridges and membrane filter cartridges, along with consumables such as filter sheets, lenticular filters and manual filtration skids.

Sartorius single-use systems support a variety of off-the-shelf cell culture media and buffers, as well as proprietary formulations ranging from culture growth mediums, chemically defined media for both batch and fed-batch applications, and buffers ranging from strong acids, bases and alcohols to detergents.   

Sartorius offers cell line, media and testing solutions as well. Quality control solutions include testing equipment, consumables, as well as data analytics solutions.

Single-Use Technologies Support Food & Beverage Applications

Sartorius offers a full range of instruments, consumables and analytical software that support a single-use approach to production for the food and beverage industry.  With a long history and outstanding track record in the pharma/biotech sector, Sartorius offers well-designed, tested and high-performance systems that are 100% applicable to food products, especially those that use proteins, colorants, additives and aromas. Any applications in which microorganisms and mammalian cells are important – for instance, cultured meat or fermented beverages – can benefit from single-use solutions.

Find out more about the full line of solutions Sartorius offers the food and beverage industry.