A technician checks temperature at the output of the MCD RW dryer. The dried product is used in Capra Mineral Whey, pictured in the inset.
Mt. Capra Whole Food Nutritionals is a manufacturer and retailer of high-quality nutritional products. Using only organic and natural ingredients, Mt. Capra’s experts employ advanced research, coupled with old-fashioned wisdom, to create supplements that help the body. The company’s keystone ingredient is fresh, organic goat milk, processed from Washington state and local area farms.
Mt. Capra’s powdered and encapsulated products are made with the same philosophy used by founder M.P. Eggars when he first manufactured raw, unpasteurized cheeses from his own goats in 1928.
When Frank Stout purchased this one-man company in 1985, it focused on cheese production. Since then, the company has refocused its dairy product line to serve the nation’s growing interest in nutritional supplements and no longer produces cheese for the general public. Using dried whey and other milk derivatives, Mt. Capra has developed a complete inventory of powdered and encapsulated mineral and protein supplements. Because goat milk and its byproduct, whey, are the main ingredients in Mt. Capra’s product inventory, the company needed a time-efficient and cost-effective method to evaporate and dry the milk and whey. It needed a system that would not compromise the healthy benefits of raw milk and a way to retain the purity and the protein that it contains. After a search of dryer technologies, Mt. Capra found what it needed in MCD Technologies Refractance Window (RW) dryers.
“Traditional drying methods used to take days, cutting into production time and minimizing company profits,” says Mt. Capra Owner Frank Stout. The RW dryer was the right selection for Mt. Capra’s product line. Using simple principles of convection, conduction and infrared ray energy obtained from hot water instead of high heat, the dryer is a compact, single piece of equipment that gently and efficiently dries the liquid from the milk in a fraction of the time of previous methods. The use of low-temperature, far-infrared heat also protects and preserves the nutrients that would be lost in high-temperature drying. In addition, since the dryer uses low heat that is constantly recirculated, the system is about two or three times more energy-efficient than other dryers. With traditional technologies, the drying process could take hours or days. With the RW dryer, most materials are dried within four to five minutes.
Since it began using the RW dryer, Mt. Capra has gone from a small, regional business to a national player in nutritional products and supplements. The time efficiency gained with this equipment has translated into quicker production, higher volume and tremendous cost savings.
“With the RW dryer, we manufacture in one day what would have taken us a week. Mt. Capra has benefited greatly by the use of the MCD dryer because it fits our product needs and output,” Stout says.
For more information:
Richard Magoon, 253-476-0968, rem@mcdtechnologiesinc.com
Frank Stout, Mt. Capra Whole Food Nutritionals, 360-748-3707, frank@mtcapra.com
