A1 - Food production and processing

Three types of food industry

• Fresh food production

• Ingredient production

• Product assembly

What is Fresh Food production?

The converting of freshly harvested products into consumer products

Steps of fresh food production

1. Harvested fruits

2. Cleaning

3. Sorting

4. Coating/slicing/shaping

   • Coating with wax for example. This prevents moisture from diffusing out of the apple.

   • Also relevant for amount of Kg in supermarkets.

5. Packaging

6. Consumer product

Steps of fresh food production (canning)

1. Fruits

2. Cutting

3. Packaging

4. Heating

5. Canned product

Can be kept for a long time

What is ingredient production?

The converting of freshly harvested products into ingredients.

• Ingredients = not directly consumed

Steps of ingredient production

Example of wheat kernels → flour

• Milling is for separating bran (hard part of wheat) from the rest.

General steps of ingredient production

• Cleaning or purification of raw material

• Preparation for fractionation (e.g. peeling)

• Fractionation (sometimes by using sifting, often by dissolution)

• Purification (separation from contaminants) and concentration)

• Stabilization

Waste steam/side stream

Waste that is not used for further production. Often used for cattle feed.

What is product assembly?

Purchasing ingredients to assemble it into consumer products

Example steps of product assembly

The four types of unit operations

1. Separation - into 2 or more streams

2. Conversion - changing the composition

3. Structuring - changing the way that ingredients are positioned

4. Stabilization - preservation and packaging

Aim, method and example of cleaning in separation (unit operations)

Aim, method and example of fractionation in separation (unit operations)

Aim, method and example of purification in separation (unit operations)

Conversion (unit operations)

Changing molecular composition

• Fermentation

• Acidification/neutralization (pH change)

• Reactions (enzyme, heating, gelatinization)

• Inactivation (microbial, enzyme)

Structuring (unit operations)

Changing the way that ingredients are positioned

• mixing ingredients to the right formulation

• Baking bread, cake, cookies

• Emulsification (homogenization)

• Crystallization

• Freezing

• Drying

Lots of phase changes

Don’t have to remember all this, just recognize that it has something to do with structure

Food stabilization/food preservation (unit operations)

Reduction of water activity, antimicrobial composition

• salting, sugar addition

• Drying

• Fermentation, acidulation, causticity

• Hurdle technology

Thermal preservation

• Heating: pasteurization, sterilization, UHP

• Cooling: chilling, chilled chain

• Freezing: related to lower a_w

Non-thermal preservation

• high hydrostatic pressure

• Pulsed electric fields

• Magnetic fields, UV, light pulses

Block chart

• Process: rectangle represents a process

• Arrow: line that connects material flows between processes

• Text: Shows input and output material

Blanching

When fruits and vegetables are heated to 100C for a few minutes. This will inactivate enzymes and micro-organisms on the outside of the product.

Production chain of meat

• Animals are slaughtered

• Meat is aged for a few days at lower temperature allowing glycogen to be metabolized into lactic acid.

• Proteolytic enzymes partially break down the cellular structure, which allows the meat to become tender.

• Waste meat is turned into sausages, canned meat or processed into ground meat

• Bones are used for broths

• Meat is frozen after processing