What is the true importance of professionalism? Does it lie in the quality of your workmanship and service, your expert and specialised knowledge in your field, or your desire to do your job with a positive attitude?

Or does it encompass all of the above – and more? To be intrinsically professional should mean striving to provide your customers with only the best, in everything you do.

By truly embodying all the elements of professionalism, Sunspray has maintained their unique niche position of being the only specialist spray-drying company in South Africa. They’ve maintained professional standards of the highest quality by upgrading their manufacturing facilities on the Industria site over recent years – the site that has been home to food manufacturing since 1944 and to spray-drying innovation since 1958.

In keeping with these high standards of professionalism, Sunspray has extended the renovations and modernised the non-production facilities. Because professionalism should be integrated into every aspect of a business, not just the individuals, Sunspray is sewing the thread of professionalism into every fibre of the site.

The Research and Development (R&D) laboratory – where all the spray-drying innovation takes place – was upgraded onto its own floor. This was achieved by casting a mezzanine floor over the Quality Control laboratory where it used to be housed, providing a much larger space in which cutting-edge work can flourish.

The brand new facility now houses a large, modern laboratory area for bench and application work, pilot plant product preparation, making up of samples and setting up products for organoleptic evaluation.

Organoleptic evaluations can now be conducted under perfect conditions in the new tasting room with customised, state-of-the-art tasting booths and serving hatches. A new temperature and humidity chamber further allows for accelerated shelf life testing and establishing stability of products. With a modern workstation for the R&D staff, paperwork can now be handled in a central area.

The elegant new meeting room provides the perfect environment for customers to come over for a discussion – just adjacent to the temperature controlled storeroom that houses all the raw materials, ingredients and samples used in R&D applications.

The modern décor of the lab gives it an ambiance of cleanliness and warmth rather than clinical sterility, and Sunspray’s top class R&D capabilities are now matched by their attractive new facilities that properly reflect the professionalism of the department.

“It will now be a pleasure to show off our capabilities to existing customers and potential new clients in such a convivial atmosphere,” says Managing Director David Watson.