Sartorius: Time Tested Quality Control Supremacy

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” - Pericles, Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens.

A hundred and fifty years ago, Florenz Sartorius, a “mechanician” at the Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen, built tools and instruments for the university’s research laboratories.

The company evolved, going on to devise incubators with precisely regulated temperatures for poultry farming in the 1890s, and in 1927, Sartorius was one of the cofounders of a company that manufactured membrane filters. Germany’s export rates rose sharply in the 50s, and in keeping pace with these rates, Sartorius built up a network of distribution and sales affiliates spanning the globe. At the end of the 1960s, the world was looking up into space as history continued to be written in Göttingen— Sartorius employees examined the absolute surface of a rare 20.2-milligram sample of moon rock brought back by the Apollo 11 mission.

“Today, we are a public company and a major player in the food and beverages quality control sector, creating solutions that offer both ease of use and high quality,” states Shigeyuki Nagashima, Manager Product Specialist at Sartorius. Their products, like the Nutrient Pad Sets and Gelatin Filters, are highly sought-after and unique in the market, offering uncompromising efficiency that can save clients time and money. For Sartorius, quality is a legacy— one that spans the ages, and the titles, trickling into the betterment of the lives of people at large.

The Industry as it Stands

Customer requirements and regulations are getting more demanding every year; with the need for frequent food and beverage QC testing and costs becoming more expensive. It directly affects the bottom line wherein every customer is trying to reduce that expense. Sartorius’ products address this challenge by helping them maximize workflows. The prices of its products are not the lowest in the market, but when one considers the total cost incurred—including labour costs—the products are outstanding in balancing both cost and quality. The connection here, specifically in the F&B sector is indicative of the fact that quality issues are not only dependent on the manufactured product, but also related to possible issues with their sourced ingredients.

Food and Beverage QC Solutions Beyond Expectations

Dr. Glenn Manning an Application Specialist from Sartorius adds, “Insufficiently purified water can cause problems in the analytical chemistry laboratories, increasing the height of the baselines in HPLC assays. This may mask impurities in the raw materials, or contaminants in the finished products. Our water purification systems are used in both microbiological testing laboratories and also chemistry labs to provide the pure water needed.” Food manufacturers have saved significant money on water and energy costs by removing water stills and replacing them with laboratory water purification systems to produce media and provide water to their analytical instruments. In processing wine, beer, mineral water, soft drinks, juice, soda or any other beverage, the highest quality from factory to shelf is mandatory. Sartorius offers filtration consumables for F&B with their range of gas filtration solutions, filtration skids, filter housings, integrity testers and a wide variety of customized equipment for beverage applications, along with data analytics solutions. The company can effectively speed up new product development, maximize production yield and improve process reliability.

With a wide range of process equipment and easy-to-use, smart laboratory products and solutions, Sartorius aims to help users deliver the best quality to customers by enhancing routine workflows while ensuring cost-effective operations. Their core product focus is especially on the microbiological QC lab for which Sartorius offers the total solution ranging from the hardware, like a manifold and a pump, to various media. The company can set pipette and dispensing products, ultrapure water systems and balances everywhere in the Food and Beverage QC lab.

Leading by Example

The company has been providing filters to a mineral water bottling company in Okayama, Japan since 2015. Before collaborating with Sartorius, the client was using traditional reusable systems for microbiological QC, and the need for high-frequency testing bottlenecked their increase in production. “We offered filters to maximize the workflow, but at the beginning of the negotiation, they refused our offer as the price of the filter was not comparable with the traditional membrane filter. A few months later, they realized that they could increase the test frequency drastically with our product, using the same number of people. The production of the bottled water increased and they went on to completely switch the traditional method to our filter,” recalls Nagashima.

In yet another instance, a manufacturer of refrigerated preserved herbs purchased several of Sartorius’ MA160 units. As they have a broad product range, the company’s method library allowed the client to select the unique analysis method for each different herb, added Danielle Aridis-Lang an Application Specialist at Sartorius. The MA160 allows for rapid MA testing, minimizing delays in production.

The testimonials are aplenty, with the following being said by the executive at the Nestle R&D Center, India: “We are happy with Sartorius product solutions and equipment support. Timely support and equipment maintenance helps us to complete our projects on time for our markets.”

150 Years on, Still Creating History

Automation, digitalization and networking – these trends will govern future laboratory work. Recognizing this, Sartorius is supporting its customers with intuitive user interfaces, intelligent assistance systems, and automated data management capabilities. To support pharmaceutical clients and other industries including Food and Beverage across their entire value chain, the company is further expanding its portfolio through acquisitions. With innovative offerings in CellAnalysis, Sartorius aims to considerably accelerate the often time-consuming development of new active ingredients and solutions for the F&B industry.