Patent ID: 8153180

Claim:
A continuous process for making a stable oil-in-water emulsion bottled beverage, said process comprising: combining an oil mixture and an aqueous mixture to form a beverage pre-emulsion, said oil mixture comprising an oil having a droplet size of about 30 microns to about 300 microns, and said aqueous mixture comprising a beverage emulsifier; continuously pumping a stream of the beverage pre-emulsion into an in-line static mixer; adjusting the flow rate of the beverage pre-emulsion stream to impart sufficient mixing energy to reduce the mean droplet size of the oil present in the beverage pre-emulsion to from about 1 micron to about 12 microns to precondition the beverage pre-emulsion; homogenizing the preconditioned beverage pre-emulsion in a single pass to form a uniformly dispersed beverage emulsion having a mean particle size of from about 0.2 microns to about 0.8 microns; and adding the uniformly dispersed beverage emulsion to a bottle having a neck, wherein the beverage emulsion does not exhibit ringing or floc in the neck of the bottle.