Calcium is widely recognized as a key nutrient and essential component of many food products but also plays a key role as a processing aid.   Food companies in today’s global marketplace continue to demand not only quality products but also cost effective materials and solutions.  

Mississippi Lime’s VitaCal™ products are cost effective processing aids used as neutralizing agents, reactants, precipitants and sources of alkalinity in many food grade processing applications.

VitaCal™ H Calcium Hydroxide is a high purity food grade hydrate product.  VitaCal™ O Calcium Oxide is a high purity food grade quicklime which provides the benefits of lime as a food grade material.  VitaCal™ PCC is a high purity, high brightness calcium carbonate. 

A common use of food grade hydrated lime is in the production of corn flour (masa).  The manufacture of corn masa used for tortillas and corn chips employs a process called nixtamalization.  Nixtamalization is the soaking and cooking of whole corn grains in a lime solution resulting in the separation of the outer hull from the inner grain (process is called steeping).  The resulting grain can then be effectively dried and ground increasing the protein and vitamin content availability.  

The production of sugar from both sugar cane and sugar beets requires calcium hydroxide.   Sugar cane and sugar beets are harvested and processed with water to form raw juice, which has low pH and contains dissolved impurities. Hydrated lime is added to the juice to raise the pH and to react with the impurities to form insoluble calcium organic compounds that can be removed. Excess lime is removed by carbonation or by the addition of phosphoric acid. This process may be repeated several times depending on the purity of final product required.