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Company Profile
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The Newport
Scientific Team |
Australia is the worlds 4th biggest exporter
and 6th biggest producer of wheat, and grain
is one of Australia’s most important
rural exports. So when one quarter of the
1983 wheat crop was lost to pre-harvest
sprouting, the consequences were catastrophic
for Australia’s economy and rural
Australians.
The Australian Wheat board urgently
sought a new test method that would be accurate,
objective, simple, rapid and reliable, even
at grain receival elevators (silos) in a
hot and dusty Australian summer.
Two years later the first Rapid Visco™ Analyser,
a stirring and cooking viscometer was ready for field trial. The RVA measured
weather damage in wheat in a 3 minute test, by pasting the starch in the sample
until the a-amylase activity was largely completed, and the viscosity stabilised.
Today the RVA looks a little different than it did in 1985, and the 3 minute
RVA “Stirring Number Test” has
been accepted by the AACC as standard method number 22-08, and the ICC as standard
number 161.
In 1987 Newport Scientific Pty Ltd produced
the first controlled heating and cooling
RVA, and evaluation of the potential of
the RVA for starch characterisation began.
Starch pasting quality assessment quickly
developed as the RVA’s
main application, with rapid starch pasting
methods being adopted as standard methods
of both the AACC and ICC in the mid 1990s.
Today,
Newport Scientific Pty Ltd continues to
respond to market needs for a wider diversity
of applications, incorporating variable
shear, extended viscosity range, and more
powerful control and analysis software into
the latest models of the RVA. These days
the RVA is distributed worldwide to be used
in a wide range of both research and commercial
applications, and both the number of RVA
users and the library of published applications
continues to grow. The RVA has been used
in breeding programs; at grain receival
and storage; in flour milling; for assessment
of raw ingredient and final product quality
for extrusion of snack foods, breakfast
cereals and pet foods; selection of wheats
suitable for noodle manufacture; characterisation
of rice, potato, tapioca, wheat, corn and
other starches; control of the commercial
starch modification process; and in the
brewing industry.
Recent publications have established
novel applications for protein testing,
including wheat gluten, soy protein and
milk proteins, extruded products and aquaculture
feeds, hydrocolloids, processed cheese and
manufactured foods.
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Rodney
Booth |
Under the leadership
of Managing Director, Rodney Booth, Newport
Scientific Pty Ltd continues to complement
its integrated research and development
program, with collaboration with experts
in both the government and private sector,
to provide novel solutions to many of the
problems now faced in the grain and food
based industries.
Recent additions to the product line
include a range of grinding mills for sample
preparation and doughLAB a flexible dough
rheometer which performs AACC standard method
number 54-21 and ICC standard number 115/1
and also offers variable temperature and
speed mixing to emulate commercial mixing
conditions.
Newport Scientific was
acquired by Perten Instruments AB of Stockholm
Sweden in August 2007. The Perten Instruments
Group are specialists in quality control
of Grain, Flour, Food and Feed. The instrument
range includes the Falling Number system,
Inframatic and Diode Array near-infrared
analysers, the Glutomatic System, the Aquamatic
grain moisture meter, laboratory mills and
single kernel analysers.
Newport
Scientific will continue to deliver its
viscometry based instruments; the Rapid
Visco Analyser range, and the doughLAB range
under the well known Newport Scientific
brand.
The complimentary nature of the instrument
range from Perten Instruments and Newport
Scientific offers a wider range of analytical
solutions to customers from a single source.
For more information on Newport Scientific
please contact us. |
