Spray Drying: Quality and Stability for Your Animal Premixes

In the formulation of premixes for animal nutrition, the stability of sensitive additives (vitamins, enzymes, probiotics, essential oils) is a key factor for performance, safety, and profitability. Premature degradation not only compromises product effectiveness but also regulatory compliance.

To address this challenge, spray drying stands out as a proven technological solution. This process transforms liquid ingredients into homogeneous powders, making them easier to stabilize and integrate into formulations. While it may lead to a slight loss of activity depending on the compounds, it remains one of the most effective methods for preserving the essential properties of sensitive actives—especially when combined with tailored encapsulation.

Discover why spray drying is a strategic lever to secure your formulations and boost the performance of your premixes.

In the animal nutrition industry, premixes are complex formulations often enriched with high-value additives: vitamins, enzymes, minerals, probiotics, plant extracts, essential oils… These ingredients play a key role in nutritional balance and zootechnical performance. However, their effectiveness depends closely on long-term stability.

Many additives used in premixes are sensitive to moisture, oxidation, heat, or chemical interactions. Without an appropriate stabilization process, they can quickly degrade, losing all (or part) of their efficacy. An unprotected enzyme, for example, may become inactive well before being incorporated into the final feed. An oxidized vitamin no longer delivers any physiological benefit.

For industry players, these losses are far from negligible. They can lead to:

• Discrepancies between declared specifications and actual product performance.
• Regulatory non-compliance or recalls (particularly regarding feed additive safety, regulated in Europe by EFSA – European Food Safety Authority).
• Reduced formulation efficiency, or the need for overdosing to compensate for expected losses.

In other words, additive instability undermines premix reliability and generates hidden costs.

With the rise of enriched formulations and bioactive ingredients, demands for preservation, traceability, and performance are increasingly high. Premix manufacturers must rely on industrial processes that guarantee active stability from start to finish.

In this context, spray drying stands out as a strategic technological solution.

Faced with the stability challenges of ingredients used in animal premixes, spray drying (or atomization) is a reference technology. This process transforms a liquid containing additives into a homogeneous, stable powder—while preserving the integrity of the most sensitive substances.

One of spray drying's main advantages lies in the brevity of heat exposure: ingredients are subjected to high temperatures for only a few seconds. This very short exposure time, combined with the ability to operate at low temperatures, greatly limits degradation.

This drying method notably enables:

• A significant reduction in water activity (Aw), slowing microbial growth and enzymatic reactions.
• Preservation of vitamins, enzymes, and probiotics, which are particularly sensitive to heat and oxidation.
• Maintenance of the bioactive properties of ingredients, essential to ensure optimal nutritional efficiency.

In short, spray drying offers an effective answer to the preservation challenges of thermosensitive or unstable additives.

Beyond the gentleness of the process, spray drying allows for fine control of key parameters:

• Hot air temperature
• Atomized droplet size
• Residual moisture content of the final powder

This control ensures a highly stable, homogeneous finished product, perfectly suited to long-term storage. The risk of post-process degradation is greatly reduced, facilitating subsequent manufacturing, transport, and storage steps.

The resulting powders are ready to be integrated into complex formulations without loss of efficacy or imbalance between components.

Choosing spray drying for your additives and ingredients means opting for reliability and performance. By transforming your actives into stable, homogeneous powders, this process directly optimizes the quality and efficiency of your premixes.

The main advantage for manufacturers? Actives that retain their effectiveness over time. Thanks to the powders' low residual moisture and enhanced protection against degradation, additives remain stable even after months of storage.
Concretely:

• Vitamins retain their nutritional potency for longer.
• Enzymes remain active until incorporation into the feed.
• Probiotics maintain their viability, avoiding loss of efficiency.

This helps reduce safety overdosing, ensure specification compliance, and limit losses related to instability—answering the performance challenges highlighted by INRAE's research into functional animal nutrition.

Beyond stability, spray drying produces fine, homogeneous powders that are easy to blend. This is crucial for high-performance premix manufacturing, as it ensures even distribution of additives in the final formula.
Concrete benefits for your production lines:

• No segregation during transport or storage.
• Good miscibility with other premix components.
• Easy dosing and incorporation into animal feed.

In short, your formulations gain in reliability, consistency, and efficiency—while simplifying industrial implementation.

In the competitive animal nutrition market, where quality and reliability are decisive criteria, spray drying goes beyond ensuring additive stability—it becomes a genuine strategic asset for premix manufacturers seeking to stand out.

With spray drying, you can work from a multi-component liquid mix to obtain, in a single step, a homogeneous powder containing several actives. This streamlines processes, reduces handling, and boosts productivity.
Direct advantages:

• Fewer manufacturing steps, saving time and reducing contamination risks.
• More concentrated formulas, easier to manage in production.
• Adaptability to your specific needs (dosage, particle size, solubility…).

This technology is ideal for quickly developing custom, differentiating premixes aligned with your customers' expectations.

Spray drying integrates seamlessly into strictly controlled production lines, meeting the most demanding regulatory requirements. At Innov'ia, every batch benefits from full traceability, from the initial blend to the final product.
Concrete commitments:

• Compliance with strict quality standards and certifications (GMP, FSSC 22000, FAMI-QS, Organic, Kosher, etc.).
• Quality control at every stage: raw materials, process, final powder.
• Complete documentation available for your audits or clients.

This means greater credibility, compliance, and safety—with products ready for sale in all regulated markets.

👉 See the official list of authorized additives and usage conditions on the European Union Feed Additives Register.

Spray drying is only truly effective when executed with rigor, precision, and adaptation to your industry's constraints. This is precisely Innov'ia's strength: sharp technical expertise combined with tailor-made support.

With over 30 years' experience, 8 spray-drying towers across 4 industrial sites, and a dedicated R&D team, Innov'ia is now one of France's leading players in functional ingredient spray drying.

What this means for you:

• Access to flexible industrial capacities, from pilot to production volumes.
• Full mastery of drying parameters to produce powders meeting your exact requirements (flowability, solubility, particle size…).
• A partner capable of safeguarding your most sensitive actives, even in complex formulations.

At Innov'ia, technology is just a tool in the service of your success. You benefit from end-to-end support—from formulation to industrial production.
Our strengths:

• Tailor-made co-development, with lab trials and prototypes.
• Contract manufacturing under certified quality management.
• Integrated analytical services to validate ingredient and formulation performance.

Working with Innov'ia means choosing a reliable technological partner, able to turn your ideas into concrete, high-performing solutions that meet market demands.

In a sector where every active matters, spray drying offers a concrete response to the challenges of stability, efficiency, and quality in animal premixes. By ensuring the preservation of sensitive ingredients, facilitating their incorporation, and guaranteeing optimal homogeneity, this technology helps you make your formulations more reliable and competitive.

With proven expertise, state-of-the-art industrial equipment, and a collaborative approach, Innov'ia supports you at every stage of your animal nutrition projects. From formulation to production, you benefit from a rigorous process compliant with the highest standards.

Want to learn more or start a project?

👉 Explore our animal nutrition solutions on our website, or contact our team for a personalized discussion.