As a mom, there's nothing more important than ensuring that your baby is healthy and safe. And for moms who want to freeze dry their breast milk, the safety and quality of the process is of utmost importance. That's why it's critical to work with a company that takes the safety and quality of handling breast milk as seriously as Leche does.
Safety Standards and Regulations
It's what customers DON’T see that matters most. We’re working with the top scientists and manufacturing partners to be the absolute best in safety, logistics and innovation. While a mom’s own breast milk is NOT an FDA regulated product, we are working to be the leader and setting the standard for regulation in this space. Freeze drying is not a new technology but the handling of mom’s individual breast milk has to be done with strict protocols and care to ensure the safety of your little one. For us, this includes extra steps we take on testing your milk prior to freeze drying to ensure that no harmful bacteria is present prior to freeze drying.
Processing breast milk requires adherence to strict safety and quality standards, especially when it comes to ensuring that each order is handled individually from start to finish. When it comes to processing any food or product, it's essential to ensure that they are processed in a safe and sanitary environment. This is where the federal government, individual state governments and third party agencies come into play. Some examples of these different agencies include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Safe Quality Food Institute (SQFI) and Safe Quality Foods (SQF). These agencies have slightly different rules and regulations but they all have a common goal of ensuring that each item that enters a food processing facility adheres to the highest food safety standards and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs). Leche operates within these guidelines and additionally incorporates specific laboratory testing and protocols to ensure your breast milk is safe from the minute it arrives at our facility to the moment .
Leche’s Freeze Drying Step-by-Step Safety Measures
- Temperature Check: When your milk arrives at our facility, our team temperature checks your milk to ensure that it is safe for processing. Once it passes a temperature check, it remains safely frozen to retain its temperature for the freeze drying process.
- Bacterial Testing: Leche is the only freeze-drying service to take an extra critical step in ensuring safety of your breast milk by quality testing your milk. We use only one drop of your breast milk and specialized testing plates that can detect even the smallest possible bacteria contamination. Once the testing is complete, your breast milk is scheduled to be freeze dried by our team of breast milk specialists.
- Freeze Drying: We have dedicated freeze-drying chambers for each individual mom. The freeze-drying process involves first freezing the dryer chamber to an extremely low temperature and then lowering the pressure to create the right environment to allow for sublimation to occur. This technology allows your breast milk to stay completely frozen while allowing heat to only enter onto the trays to remove the water. The water is then pulled from your breast milk and turned into a gas and that gas is removed by vacuuming it out.
- Individual Packaging: Once dried, your powdered breast milk is brought to a sterile laminar hood packaging area and individually packaged in Leche’s convenient on-the-go travel packs (Leche Premier) or a resealable pouch (Everyday Leche). Once the packing process is complete, your Leche is sent back to you.
- Tracking: Each of these steps is logged, tracked and monitored to ensure sterile and safe handling practices are followed.
How to Choose Your Freeze Drying Service
While Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) are important and required by law for all food facilities, we at Leche knew that incorporating pharmaceutical and laboratory testing was equally, if not even more, important. We not only have a dedicated breast milk processing facility, but we also have a separate dedicated breast milk laboratory specifically designed for in depth testing and quality control.
Choosing the right breast milk freeze-drying service is a decision that should carefully take into consideration the safety standards of processing, packing and shipping. At Leche, we prioritize the safety and quality of our products and take every step to ensure that our facility adheres to the highest food safety standards. As moms, we understand the emotional attachment that moms have with their breast milk and are committed to providing the best possible service to our customers. With Leche, you can trust that your breast milk is in good hands and will be processed with the utmost care and attention to detail.