Lloyd Instruments TAPlus texture analyser

The Lloyd Instruments TAPlus texture analyser, combined with the Nexigen Plus texture analysis software, can be used to measure force, time and distance, enabling parameters such as adhesiveness, chewiness, fracturability, firmness, stringiness and other food processing parameters vital to some food’s characteristics to be calculated and quantified.

Texture analysis can highlight quality-improvement opportunities throughout the supply chain and in the production process. At the research and development stage, new ingredients can be compared with existing ingredients. In production, texture is used for the measurement and control of temperature, humidity and cooking time.

It can apply forces up to 100 kg. The analyser has a large working area which has nearly 180 mm throat depth; 8 kHz sampling rate to capture all data points; and a wide extension-speed range from 60 µm/s to 21 mm/s. There are multilingual and multi-unit options for the analyser, intelligent plug-and-play load cells, automatic diagnostics and calibration checks and frame stiffness compensation for extension accuracy.

The NexigenPlus software is the hub of any of the company’s texture analysis systems. The intuitive software program includes a complete standards library for food, cosmetics and packaging testing. A comprehensive multi-stage test wizard is included as well as a video and still picture-capturing system. SPC trend and histogram charts, data-export utility are standard and the software has seamless integration with Microsoft Office.