Sponsored by MicrotracReviewed by Emily MageeMay 11 2026
In food and beverage manufacturing, product quality is shaped by more than the ingredients on the label. The way a product looks, feels, tastes, pours, dissolves, or remains stable over time is often influenced by particle behavior at a much smaller scale.
Image Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock.com
Particle size, shape, surface charge, and stability can all affect texture, mouthfeel, appearance, shelf life, and processing performance. This article explores how particle characterization helps manufacturers better understand those relationships and then use such insights to improve quality, consistency, and formulation outcomes across the product lifecycle.
The article is structured around three main sections, each focused on a different part of the food and beverage landscape, but all connected by the same central idea: better measurement leads to better product understanding.
The first section, Engineering Texture and Functionality in Solid Foods, looks at how particle properties influence solid products such as coffee, chocolate, and sugar. These examples show how closely product performance is tied to the size and shape of individual particles.
In coffee, grind size distribution has a direct impact on extraction, flavor balance, aroma release, and brew consistency. Even relatively small differences in particle distribution can change the final drinking experience. The article highlights how the CAMSIZER X2+ can be used to analyze coffee powders quickly and accurately, particularly in cases where traditional sieve methods struggle with oily or agglomeration-prone materials.
Chocolate provides another clear example of the importance of particle control. Texture in chocolate is defined at the micrometer level, and particles above a certain size can create an unwanted gritty sensation. To help address this, the article discusses the SYNC analyzer, which combines Laser Diffraction with Dynamic Image Analysis to measure particle size while also giving visual confirmation of coarse particles.
This allows manufacturers to look beyond a single average number and better understand the fractions that can influence smoothness and mouthfeel. Sugar, meanwhile, is presented as a case where more advanced image-based techniques can improve on traditional sieve analysis by offering greater reproducibility as well as additional insight into particle shape, agglomerates, and potential contamination.
Together, these examples show that texture and functionality depend not just on what a product contains, but on how its particles are distributed and how they behave.
The second section, From Ingredients to Beverages: Controlling Stability and Performance, shifts the focus to liquid systems, where stability is often one of the biggest formulation and quality challenges. Using examples including green tea, milk powders, beer, and CBD beverages, the article shows how particle interactions can be used to detect and predict instability earlier than traditional methods allow.
In green tea, subtle colloidal changes can eventually lead to haze, sedimentation, or reduced visual appeal. The article shows how STABINO ZETA can be used alongside particle size analysis to provide faster insight into colloidal stability, helping manufacturers assess destabilization risk before obvious failure occurs.
In milk powders, the challenge is not only long-term stability but also rehydration. The article explains how TURBISCAN technology can monitor rehydration in real time, giving manufacturers a clearer view of how powders disperse and how stable the resulting system remains.
Beer stability is also discussed, with charge titration presented as a quicker and more sensitive alternative to traditional forcing tests for identifying early colloidal changes linked to haze formation. In CBD beverages, where nanoemulsion quality is closely tied to droplet size and surface charge, the article describes how NANOTRAC FLEX, STABINO ZETA, and TURBISCAN can be used together to support formulation development, process control, and shelf-life evaluation.
Across these applications, the message is consistent: earlier visibility into particle behavior makes it easier to control stability and reduce formulation risk.
The third section, Accelerating Innovation in Formulation and Additives, looks at how particle characterization can also support development work, not just quality control. The article uses examples including plant proteins and beverage emulsions to show how analytical tools can help manufacturers move from trial and error to a more informed, data-driven approach.
With plant proteins, understanding how ingredients disperse and dissolve is essential, as these behaviors affect texture, stability, and process performance. The article highlights TURBISCAN DNS as a tool for monitoring solubility and dispersion in real time, making it easier to compare ingredients such as pea and soy and understand their practical differences under processing conditions.
In beverage emulsions, the focus is on weighting agents and the role they play in improving stability and appearance. By monitoring creaming, opacity changes, and ring formation, manufacturers can compare traditional and natural alternatives more effectively and optimise formulations with greater confidence.
This section reinforces the wider value of particle characterization as a development tool that helps improve speed, consistency, and decision-making.
Across all three sections, the article highlights a few key ideas. One is that particle behavior has a direct effect on product performance, whether the goal is smooth texture, controlled extraction, better dispersion, improved rehydration, or longer shelf life.
Another is that combining multiple analytical techniques gives a far more complete picture than relying on a single measurement alone. By bringing together technologies such as Dynamic Image Analysis, Laser Diffraction, Dynamic Light Scattering, Zeta Potential, and Stability Analysis, manufacturers can gain deeper and more actionable insight into how products behave.
Most importantly, the article shows that earlier insight leads to better outcomes, helping teams reduce variability, improve consistency, and accelerate development.
Read the full article to explore each application in more detail
This information has been sourced, reviewed, and adapted from materials provided by Microtrac.
For more information on this source, please visit Microtrac.