There is a wise saying: water is life. We might add that good water is a healthy life. The fashion for having a healthy lifestyle has caused an increase in the consumption of safe bottled water which has favorable organoleptic properties. Dmitry Makarkin, Director for Quality and New Technologies of PROGRESS OJSC, discusses the healthiness of children's water and explains why it can be given to a child from the first days of life.
The hygienic requirements for children's water are more stringent than those of the water of a centralized water supply system. Children's water, while maintaining all the criteria listed above, is also optimal in quality, meets the criteria of physiological usefulness in terms of the content of the main biologically necessary macro- and microelements, and meets the even more stringent regulations for a number of organoleptic and sanitary-toxicological indicators. Children's water is specifically designed to preserve and improve health, which is especially important for the most vulnerable ‘critical’ group of the population, the children.
Dmitry Makarkin, Director for Quality and New Technologies of PROGRESS OJSC, talks about the healthiness of children's water and why it can be given to a child from the first days of life.
What kind of water can be called children’s water?
- Only drinking water of the highest quality, extracted from independent underground (preferably spring or artesian) water sources, reliably protected from biological and chemical pollution and balanced in its quality. It must meet a number of requirements. On the one hand, it does not allow the use of preservatives, silver and carbon dioxide, on the other hand, it must meet strict criteria of physiological usefulness.
About the benefits of children's water
- Children's water must pass state registration as a product of baby food (you can find the list of state registration certificates on the Internet). Children's water is subject to higher safety requirements. It undergoes additional purification to achieve optimal physiological usefulness of the mineral composition.
Children's water should contain the optimal levels of biologically necessary macronutrients (calcium, magnesium) and some microelements (potassium, fluorine and others). Balanced mineralization makes it possible to maintain the optimal composition of milk formulas and cereals during their dilution, and to provide the child’s organism with the necessary minerals.
The production process of children's water
- I'll tell you how the process is organized in our factory in Lipetsk.
1) Natural drinking water from the well is piped to the water treatment department, where it is cleaned, conditioned and passes through an antibacterial treatment.
2) The water, thus prepared, goes to the water bottling line, where, using modern equipment, the water is poured into polyethylene terephthalate bottles, previously produced at the factory from preforms on the blowing machine. After this, the bottles are capped.
3) The label is attached to the sealed bottles and labeled, indicating the date, time of production, the name of the production line and the final shelf life of the product. Any absence of such marking is unacceptable.
4) In the final stage of production, the bottles are assembled in group packaging, stacked on pallets and transported to the warehouse.
Quality control
- Water from the well, water at the stages of water treatment, water before bottling, the process of production of bottles, finished products - all these stages of the technological process of production should be under constant round-the-clock control of the specialists of the laboratory for quality control. This should be the case with all manufacturers of children's water.
From each batch produced, control samples must be taken, which are stored before the expiration of the product's shelf life in specially equipped premises for the purpose of conducting research.
The shelf life of bottled children's water is 8 months at a temperature of 2 to 25 degrees Celsius and relative humidity is not more than 85% without exposure to sunlight. The shelf life of an open bottle of baby water is no more than 3 days in the refrigerator.
At the production of children's water, as well as on the whole production complex, a quality management system and food safety system has been introduced, corresponding to the international standards ISO 9001 and ISO 22000 (HACCP).