Enabling a continuous, climate‑smart dry powder process at cReal
We stepped in from the grey Skåne morning into a place that looked more like a lab than a factory. Stainless steel, white walls, almost no noise – and floors so clean. This was cReal’s brand-new site in Bjuv, Sweden, built to scale a deceptively simple idea: turn Swedish oats into a future-proof alternative to milk powder.
From the outside, it looks like one more modern food plant in a region full of industrial heritage. Step inside, and it becomes clear that this is also a response to bigger forces: changing diets, tighter climate targets and customers looking for reliable, lower-carbon ingredients.
Oat-based “milk powder” vs dairy
The bigger picture was clear even before we walked the line. Oats are a climate-resilient crop that is still underused in food production, despite their potential. cReal’s ingredient can replace conventional milk powder in ice cream, yogurt, chocolate, savoury products and baked goods, opening the door to a large-scale shift away from dairy powders. A pre Life Cycle Assessment suggests up to 78% lower CO₂ emissions compared with traditional milk powder – a massive lever in a market where EU skimmed milk powder production alone is projected at about 1.5 million tonnes in 2025.
For food and beverage producers, that lever is not only about sustainability reporting. It is also about reducing exposure to volatile dairy markets and being able to offer end-consumers familiar products with a lower climate footprint – without rebuilding entire factories.
The cReal plant in Bjuv basically does something very simple: it uses oats and water to produce fine organic oat powder that can replace milk powder – but the process has to work at large scale, every hour, every day.
The Challenge: Handling a delicate oat powder in continuous operation
The first part of the process is exactly that: carefully handled oats, mixed with water and given enough time to hydrate properly. The liquid slurry then passes through retention tanks where residence time, temperature and the degree of particle breakdown are fine-tuned to achieve the right viscosity, taste and colour.
But it’s when the process crosses from wet to dry that the biggest risks appear. After drying, the slurry becomes a fine oat powder – full of potential, but also fragile in another way. It can form lumps, generate dust, stick in equipment or lose quality if handled poorly. Manual handling can create dust clouds, contamination risks and heavy, repetitive work. Any interruption or inconsistency on the dry side threatens both continuous operation and the climate case: every kilo lost to filters, floors or blocked equipment is a kilo that never replaces milk powder.
Immediately after the dryer, the powder therefore passes through a lump breaker that knocks down larger agglomerates and prepares the material for consistent bulk handling. This is where cReal needed a solution that could combine stability, hygiene and a “gentle process” philosophy, at full industrial scale.
Closed vacuum conveyors as the backbone of the dry side
Right after the lump breaker, the Piab vacuum conveyors step in as the main characters. From the lump breaker, a Piab system draws the powder into a closed pipeline and pulls it through the wall into a silo on the other side. Those few metres of stainless-steel pipe make a big difference. Instead of open screw conveyors, chutes and spillage, the plant gets a controlled, hygienic and dust-tight transfer.
The flow from dryer to silo can remain stable without operators shovelling, lifting or working in a cloud of fine powder. For cReal’s customers, that stability translates into more predictable powder quality when it finally reaches their own lines. A powder that is protected from dust, air and manual handling is more likely to behave the same way, week after week, in someone else’s mixer or dissolving tank.
Next to the dryer stands a horizontal mixer. It gives cReal options: to homogenise powder from different runs, to blend in additional dry components, or to develop special recipes. Again, feeding is carried out by a Piab vacuum conveyor, which means the mixer can be tied into the overall flow without compromising cleanliness or the “gentle process” philosophy.
The powder rarely leaves enclosed systems; it travels from dryer, via lump breaker, vacuum lines and silo, into blending and on towards packaging – always protected from dust, waste and contamination. For brand owners and product developers, this offers something important: room to create variants and tailor recipes without adding new hygiene risks or manual steps.
In practice, the line now looks like this: the dryer feeds, the lump breaker breaks, the vacuum conveyor moves, the silo receives, and the mixer blends – all connected by Piab’s closed conveying systems.
Implementation: from installation to stable day-to-day operation
As we walked through the halls – past silos, pipework and the new, fully automated equipment designed to meet BRCGS, the global gold standard for food safety – it was easy to be impressed by the shine of steel and the control cabinets. Behind that shine sits a lot of design and implementation work: sizing the conveyors correctly, integrating them with the dryer, silo and mixer, and making sure access, cleanability and food-safety requirements are met.
By building the dry side around closed vacuum conveyors from the start, cReal avoided retrofitting compromises. The systems were installed as part of the new line and tuned together with the rest of the equipment, so that the conveyors, the lump breaker and the process controls work as one continuous flow rather than as separate islands of equipment.
For the operators on the floor, this shows up in very concrete ways: fewer hours spent shoveling or cleaning, less airborne dust, easier access for inspection and maintenance. Those details rarely make it into a sustainability report, but they are what keep a line running day after day.
The results: continuous dry flow, less waste and a stronger climate case
With the vacuum conveying system in place, cReal can run the dry side of the line in a practically continuous way. The powder moves gently and predictably from dryer to silo to mixer, with very little exposure to the environment and minimal need for manual intervention.
“The vacuum conveyors have really become the backbone of our dry side. They keep the flow stable from the dryer to the silo and mixer, with hardly any dust or manual handling. For us, that’s what makes a continuous process realistic in everyday operation.”
Every kilo of oat powder that safely makes it from dryer to packaging instead of ending up as dust in a filter or a heap on the floor strengthens the CO₂ case for the entire concept. Higher yields and fewer losses mean that the climate advantages of the ingredient itself – up to 78% lower CO₂ emissions compared with traditional milk powder – are not eaten up by inefficiencies in the factory.
At the same time, the closed conveying helps cReal live up to strict food-safety and quality demands. Cleaner equipment, less dust and easier cleaning routines reduce contamination risks and unplanned stops. For the people working in the factory, the benefits are equally tangible: a quieter, cleaner and less physically demanding working environment.
Seen in a wider context, the cReal plant in Bjuv is one example of how process technology can quietly unlock bigger system changes. Oat powder alone does not decarbonise the food system – but when ingredients with a lower footprint are combined with higher yields, safer work environments and less waste, the impact reaches far beyond a single factory.
“We’ve taken a major leap” – what that means for other food producers
Somewhere between that surgically clean floor and the pulsing vacuum lines, it becomes clear: the shift to more sustainable food is not just about changing what we eat – from dairy to oats – but also about how we move, protect and respect those ingredients on their way through the factory.
cReal’s plant shows that if you want climate-smarter products on supermarket shelves, you also need climate-smarter ways of conveying, dosing and protecting every kilo of powder along the way. For food and beverage producers looking to scale plant-based and low-carbon concepts, reliable, hygienic and gentle bulk powder conveying is one of the quiet enablers that makes those ambitions real.
Are you curious how Piab can help you design continuous, safe and efficient powder handling for your own food applications? Read more about our food conveying solutions or get in touch with us to explore what a similar “major leap” could look like in your factory.