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Drying of protein for food applications

November 19, 2025

Meat and milk products are by far the largest protein sources in human food structure. Together with seafood it covers currently approx. 98% of the world protein consumption. However, in recent years, a trend to alternative protein sources is well in progress. The main reason is the impact of meat consumption on environment and health as well as ethical considerations.

Proteins can get spoiled easily due to their susceptibility to microbial growth and enzymatic activity. They are rich in nutrients, given sufficient water content and reasonable temperature and pH range, bacteria will find their way. One of the prevention strategies is drying. BHS has comprehensive experience in drying various protein products, e.g., fish rest; krill (tiny shrimps); insect larvae, or plant bases such as nuts & seeds.

All these products need to be dried to a moisture level to approx. 10 % for long-term conservation, whereas the product temperature needs to be kept low to avoid a bitter taste of the product. For efficient removal of moisture from protein products, a combination of BHS Rotary pressure filter and vacuum dryer is optimal for this purpose – the filtration step reduces the moisture content to a level feasible with mechanical dewatering, furthermore, the desired final moisture content can be reached by vacuum drying. Thanks to the reduced boiling point of the solvent, the process temperature can be kept lower than competitive drying methods.