Costs of plant oils encapsulation using extrusion SND process

Plant oils are important not only for human nutrition, but also for cosmetic industry, pharmaceutical industry and alike. Within plant oils, there is an increasing interest for production and use of grape seed oil as a type of high-quality plant oil. Nevertheless, grape seed oil should be treated (through the process of encapsulation) in order to protect its active ingredients. Therefore, the goal of this research is to analyse the costs of a new and original approach to grape seed oil encapsulation, which is called submerged-nozzle dispersion (SND) for oil encapsulation in alginate. After determining necessary investments in equipment, total production costs were calculated (as well as average costs per unit of product). Authors also discussed fixed and variable costs per kilogram of encapsulates for different levels of capacity use. Risk analysis was performed by applying sensitivity analysis and assuming different scenarios for market prices of the most important inputs. It was determined that average production costs of encapsulates significantly vary depending on production level, while prices of grape seed oil and sodium alginate also play an important role. Costs also depend on some technological factors, such as encapsulation efficiency and load of active compound. The results offer an insight in the effects of future investments in food industry