The megatrend reshaping the food and beverage industry is now crystal clear. People want everything they eat and drink to be healthier and more nutritious.
There’s a hidden piece to meeting this challenge. It turns out that the thermal pasteurization process used ubiquitously to make food safe from contamination is silently degrading flavors, aromas, colors, and bioactive ingredients.
But there’s a new option, it’s FloUV, and this company is getting an incredibly positive reception across beverage.
This interview took place in January 2026 with co-founders Pankaj Uttarwar (CEO) and Dr. Ankit Patras (CTO).
Q: How is UV-C different than thermal pasteurization?
Dr. Ankit Patras:
Thermal processing is heat – below or above the boiling point – for anywhere from 10 seconds to 20 seconds, enough to rupture microbial membranes. But that heat also cracks critical proteins, oxidizes lipids, and alters flavor compounds, creating off notes.
FloUV does not use heat. It uses a precise wavelength of UV-C photons for fractions of seconds. It damages the genome of the microbes, preventing them from replicating. But it doesn’t denature the proteins and retains small molecules, such as flavor compounds.
Q: How is FloUV different than existing UV-C machines?
Dr. Ankit Patras:
UV-C has been around, but only for liquids that were clear and non-viscous. Basically, it’s good for water.
What we’ve done at Flo is vastly expand the utility of UV-C into liquids that are opaque and viscous, such as milks, syrups, coffee, ciders, and juices.
The other thing we did has vastly reduced the system cost, by 4x, and the energy consumption by 10x. This is a function of highly precise dosing, with no overdosing.
Q: How is FloUV getting such rapid uptake from beverage and dairy processors?
Pankaj Uttarwar:
We had our OEM in India build few pilot units for us to be used in testing.
These aren’t small. Each processes 800 liters an hour and is about the size of a big refrigerator. But as we did our initial customer outreach, immediately our potential partners wanted to buy those pilot units outright. So we sold them and within just a couple of weeks they took the delivery, tested them and came back straight away with orders for units that were 20 to 30 times larger.
Within just two months we were negotiating over $5 million of orders.
Q: What are some of the use cases your customers are excited about?
Pankaj Uttarwar:
Indian dairy has a long and complex supply chain.
It uses thousands of chilling stations that cool milk down to 4C before its trucked to centralized dairy processors.
Those chilling stations are fast adopters because there are certain microbes that they don’t want even coming into their central plants.
And dairy is also selling premium ingredients extracted from milk, like lactoferrin and immunoglobins.
10 times more of the active proteins is conserved, undamaged when using FloUV, drastically changing those economics.
Dr. Ankit Patras:
We have a lot of traction in juices, and health drinks, because we’re killing yeasts and molds that others can’t inactivate with their systems.
One thing that’s really exciting is, if you sell a flavor syrup, like a coffee or vanilla syrup, you need less inputs. And the reason is because the flavor and aroma is better retained, saving a lot of money.
Pharma fluids range from cell culture media to water-solvent drugs, like with both APIs and antibodies. They use expensive microfiltrations and still have trouble meeting the regulatory standards, because the water is heat treated – when it ruptures microbial membranes, endotoxins and genetic material oozes out.
Q: What fundamental insight drove the development of FloUV’s technology?
Dr. Ankit Patras:
I have worked for 10 years at Tennessee State University in Nashville to develop the FloUV systems. There were all sorts of challenges to solve. Most beverage companies don’t even measure the optics of the liquids correctly.
At FloUV, we built a robust computational model to measure complex optical properties, which are absorption and scattering. In doing that, we also adjusted for viscosity, so each device is engineered to a specific function to that fluid.
And in our tube, the liquids at the edge flow slower than the liquid in the center. Our patented serpentine helical flow system creates what we call “controlled turbulence,” that rapidly and continuously mixes the fluids so that every particle of the liquid layer is getting equal exposure.
Q: Can you taste the difference?
Dr. Ankit Patras:
Absolutely. It is like night and day. I love it. It’s delicious. Everybody’s gonna love that.
Q: How are you doing manufacturing, and how fast can they produce your units?
Pankaj Uttarwar:
We have a very technical OEM we’re very happy with. Our Head of Engineering and our Process Engineer are on site to oversee the work.
The first big unit, that will process 20 to 30 thousand liters an hour, is leaving the factory right now.
Before the end of 2026, we will have booked all of those $5 million in orders.