Introduction

The Formula Development section is where formulas are developed and evaluated. The Formula Development section also includes a batching component. The batching section has features to view ingredient amounts in any unit of measure, determine the batch size to use up an ingredient, determine the consequences of rounding off ingredient amounts (for example to the nearest bag or bottle) as well as other features we will cover.

There is some duplication of features between the Formula Development and the Nutrition Labeling sections. Some people like to start out in Formula Development then move the formula to Nutrition Labeling.

There is also some duplication of features between the Formula Development section and the ingredient file editing features.  Why is this? TechWizard Online™ provides a great deal of flexibility for “what if” type analysis.  This being said part of this flexibility is the capability to modify ingredient composition, price and density in the Formula Development section. This provides the user more freedom when evaluating various situations. Unfortunately it can lead to confusion. The user must always remember that changes made to ingredient composition, price, or density in the Formula Development section do not affect values in the ingredient file.  For changes to ingredients to be permanent you must edit the ingredient file.

The first part of this section covers general information on layout and how to do tasks in the Formula Development section. The second half is composed of a variety of tutorials. We cover least cost formulation entirely in the tutorial section.  It is much easier to describe the process using examples.

Formula Development Section Layout

Below is a figure displaying the appearance of the Formula Development section after running the first cultured products automated example.  I suggest you run this example in TechWizard Online™ so you can review the information on your computer screen.  If you are unsure how to do this, review Automated Examples.  What follows are some brief instructions on how to run the first cultured products automated example.

To run the first cultured products automated example do the following:

Click the Goto button and select Help.

In the window that appears, select either Cultured Products Automated Examples or Frozen Dessert Automated Examples from the Automated Examples group.

In the window that appears, select Cultured Products Automated Examples from the Automated Examples group.

In the Automated Examples window click Button 1. Be sure to click the Next button each time it becomes active. Once you are finished please continue reading.

At first glance the Formula Development section may look as complicated as the instrument panel in an airplane (see figure below). Our goal in this section is to help you understand and use the features found in the Formula Development section. If you ran the first automated example, your computer screen looks like the figure below, we will start in the upper left corner and work our way through the figure.

The menus for this section marked with a pointer are in the upper left-hand corner. Below this, the formula name and formula identification number are displayed (A). If you click in the white portion of the box you can edit this information.  When working on your formulas, you can use whatever you like for the formula name and ID.

Figure showing the Formula Development section after running the first cultured products automated example.

Just below the Formula Name & ID is the Formula Status which contains, “Formulation Meets All Constraints” (B). This means TechWizard Online™ found a solution that met all requirements. Just what those requirements are will be explained shortly.

Below Formula Status and distributed around the screen are buttons and check boxes. Each is described in a table below.  The buttons duplicate the procedures found in the Formula Dev menu to allow faster access.

Notice that many of the cells on your screen are blue. This denotes that you are allowed to type in these cells. The other cells are protected. If you try to type in them, TechWizard Online™ will display a warning message.

On the left side of the screen notice the columns containing the ingredient reference numbers and the ingredient descriptions (C). The next column over is the % of each ingredient in the formula (D). The numbers in this column are the result of the entire task – the recipe. To the right of the ingredients are the corresponding restrictions set on ingredient usage (Min, Max for minimum and maximum), the diagnostics column, and the price columns (E).

Moving further to the right are the columns associated with properties. What are properties? They define the composition of the formula. The first column in this section lists the property name (F). In the figure, the properties are MSNF (short for Milk Solids Non Fat), Total Fat, Sucrose (short for sucrose solids), Total Solids, and Rel Sweetness (short for Relative Sweetness). Next are the current composition and corresponding units (G). Finally we see the minimum and maximum columns (H), which describe the range of each property we require.

Table describing the buttons and check boxes in the Formula Development section.

If you scroll to the right you will see rows of blue cells containing the composition data for each of the ingredients. The columns headings match the property list (see figure below).  The user can temporarily change the composition values and consider how it will affect the formula.

Figure showing the ingredient composition portion of Formula Development.

If you keep scrolling to the right beyond the ingredient composition data you will see the ingredient contributions data. This is the contribution of each ingredient to the overall formula composition (see figure below).

Figure showing the ingredient contributions portion of Formula Development.

The time has come to better explain the meaning of Formula Status and the diagnostic columns. The following is a description of what we are trying to accomplish in this formula development example.  Here is what we asked TechWizard Online™ to do:

TechWizard Online™ please make a yogurt recipe containing milk, condensed skim milk, skim milk, modified starch, gelatin, liquid sugar and culture that has 11% MSNF, 1.5% Total Fat, and 8% Sucrose Solids.  Since I already know these amounts work well in yogurt, please use exactly 0.8% modified starch, 0.5% gelatin, and 0.002% culture. I leave it up to you, TechWizard Online™ to determine how much of the other ingredients to use. I know these are all good quality ingredients so if you find a combination that reduces the overall cost of the formula that would be helpful. One more thing – let me know what the total solids and relative sweetness of the final recipe is. If you run into trouble please let me know.

In this case, TechWizard Online™ was able to provide us what we asked. The purpose of Formula Status and the diagnostic columns is to help us if something goes wrong. Suppose we did not tell TechWizard Online™ to use any sugar. This would make it impossible to provide the necessary sucrose solids required. Formula Status would alert us that something is wrong. The diagnostics columns would point out what specifically is the matter. Together this would help us realize that we need to add a source of sucrose solids for TechWizard Online™ to use. This brings up another important point. We could have provided TechWizard Online™ a variety of candidate ingredients. By doing this TechWizard Online™ could determine which ingredients best suited our needs while minimizing cost.

Some of you may be thinking that the previous discussion was all very nice but the composition of my raw ingredients never changes and neither does my recipe so I do not really need see a need for least cost formulation.   This section can still be beneficial if you wish to find out the composition of your recipe. You would simply enter the percentage of each ingredient in the %(wt/wt) column then add any property to the formula for which you wish TechWizard Online™ to display compositional information.  If you do not know the percentage of each ingredient then use the Recipe Entry feature.

The Formula Development section also provides a means of determining amounts required to make a given amount of a particular recipe. This is where we will start the next segment, the layout of the Batching portion of the Formula Development section.

Batching Section Layout

The Batching section is really not a separate section. It is part of the Formula Development section. If you have not read the previous segment, then at least read the portion that describes running the first cultured products automated example. This will allow you to see on your computer screen what is described here.  To view the batching section, click the Batch button just below the Formula Status.

The figure shown below shows the Batching portion of Formula Development after running cultured products automated example 1. There are two new buttons in the Batching section (A) that we have not already described in the previous segment. The Home button – it moves you back to the formula portion of the screen. The View Volume Choice button – it moves you to the portion of the worksheet that displays the ingredient density and volume choice.

Some pertinent information on formula composition and batch size is shown just to the right of the buttons (B). Below this is information on the formula density and how it is determined (C). Users can enter a formula density for a particular recipe. If no density is provided, TechWizard Online™ will try to estimate the density.

The cell containing the batch size is a blue cell (D). This means you can type the number directly into the cell and the ingredient amount information is automatically recalculated. The corresponding batch unit dropdown is just to the right. Directly below the batch size cell are two more unit dropdowns (E and F). These dropdowns set the units to be displayed for ingredient amounts in these columns. The last row shows the total amount (G) and just to the left is the total price for this batch amount. There is another column displaying ingredient amounts referred to as Production Units (H). There is a check box labeled Fractions. This allows you to show the Production Units in fractions such as ½ bag, ½ cup, etc.

Above the Production Units is another blue cell where the user can enter the % overrun (I). This is useful for individuals working with frozen desserts or whipped products. Overrun is a measure of air incorporation. The check box labeled Include Overrun (J) allows the user working with frozen desserts to view volume amounts containing a given amount of air. This concludes our review of the Batching portion of Formula Development. The next few segments describe how to carry out various operations in the Formula Development section.

Figure showing the Batching section after running the first cultured products automated example.

Viewing the Formula Development Section

When you first enter TechWizard Online™ you are in the Formula Development section.

To get to the Formula Development section, click the Goto button and select Formula Dev.

Viewing the Various Parts of the Formula Development Section

The Formula Development section is composed of various parts. The following instructions describe how to quickly view them.

Viewing Ingredient Composition in a Formula

If you are not already in the Formula Development section, Click the Goto button and select Formula Dev. Click the View button and select Composition.

Viewing Ingredient Contributions in a Formula

Click the View button and select Contributions.

Viewing the Batching Section

Click the View button and select Batching Section.

Viewing Ingredient Declaration Information in a Formula

Click the View button and select Ref #, Dec., Density.

Viewing Ingredient Density Values in a Formula

Click the View button and select Ref #, Dec., Density.

Viewing Freezing Properties for a Formula

Click the View button and select Ref Freezing Properties.