Extrusion Technology

Food that is rich in starch is cooked to a semi solid or solid mass and then expanded or puffed via extruder to form a snack.It includes several unit operations like mixing, cooking, kneading, shearing, shaping and forming.

Extrusion in snack foods:

Snacky foods can be produced by extrusion process in 3 ways

Simply extruded snacks. Majority of the extruded snacks fall under this category. (Eg).Three dimensional animals, cartoon characters.

Directly expanded snacks. This includes corn puffs, onion rings etc. Twin screw extruder is mainly used for the direct extrusion of snack.

Process in which extruded pellets (cereal ground paste) undergo secondary puffing. In the secondary puffing step the product is puffed either through fryer or it is expanded by passing through hot air or microwave oven.

Apart from the above 3 methods, a new booming technology known as co-extrusion is spreading virally all over the world. Co-extrusion obtains a product that combines two different textures (i.e) one material is extruded and continuously filled with another to form a single product.  For example, a crispy cereals outer envelope can be co-extruded with a sweet filling. Co-extrusion process uses an auxiliary nozzle setup for injecting the centre filling which is covered by an outer cereal based extruded layer. The centre filling can be cereal based filling, fat based filling or water based filling. Both injection and extrusion will occur simultaneously during co-extrusion process. Co-extrusion being a versatile process, variousimproved centre filled products can be customized by modifying co-extrusion process, some of them are.

• Co-extrusion can be combined with the twin screw extrusion system were the outer cereal layer will be formed with the inner centre filling which can then baked to get crispy snack.
• Credit card, a co-extruded snack which has a thin outer wafer with a centre filling of fruit puree. The fruit puree can be replaced with our desired centre filling.
• C o-extrusion with thin cereal outer layer and thick centre filling can be customized into different shape using systems like pillow cutter, rotary cutter.

5 Common Mistakes in Food Label by Indian Food Importers

Huge consignments of imported meats, cheeses, sauces, edible oil , whisky chocolates  mayonnaise and some other popular items, are held up at port due to insufficient information on the package labels. The 5 common mistakes in Food label faced by Indian Food importers are

•         Label content should be clearly visible in English or Hindi.
•         FSSAI logo & license number
•        Ingredient list
•     Manufacturer address& Marketed by
•     Packing date and expiry date

The Importer should display FSSAI logo and license number along with name and address of the importer. These may be Pre-printed on the label or affixed through stickers before customs clearance. They should follow section 2.3.3 of FSSAI (Packaging and labelling) Regulations 2011 for the height of letters & numerals and section 2.6.1 for displaying FSSAI logo and license number.

In case of multiple units (manufacturer/packer/re-labeller/marketer) the FSSAI logo and license number of brand owner should be displayed on the individual package.

Some of the top brands of Food and Beverage sector like GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Ferrero Group, Tata Starbucks, Lindt chocolates, Cadbury, Mars, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Bacardi, William Grant & Sons  Brown Forman have been caught by the FSSAI due to minor errors in label and most of their consignments were sent back or stuck in port.

As per FSSAI, manufacturers are required to list the ingredients of a product on its label unless it is a single ingredient product.

While scotch makers argue that all alcoholic beverages are made of one ingredient, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) say scotch whisky consignments were held at the port because sampling found they contain ingredients such as added caramel, colour or some flavour, whereas the same were not listed in their labels. Even Codex, which is in line with international standards, does not deem scotch to be a single ingredient product, said "FSSAI's Chief Executive Officer Dillip Kumar Samantaray.

Kindly ensure before importing the Food products to Indian market the Food label meets the Indian FSSR guidelines for easy clearance at Customs.

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10 Checklist Influencing on Food Product Pricing

Food product pricing is a very important step in succeeding your food business. Food product pricing not only includes raw material and manufacturing cost but also it includes other investments in various key areas. Below are the checklist which you have to access for food product pricing.

•    Raw material cost
•   Production cost
•  Maintenance cost
• Over heads (salary of non-production team, Office EB, Interest, Rent, Depreciation,           Conveyance, Investment on knowledge and so on)
•   Marketing investment
•  Logistic cost
•  Channels - C&F,Super Stockist, Distributor, Retailer
•  Packaging material
•   Profit %
•   Government charges

The ability to price competitively determines the business success.

Your ability to select which you can sell most and make higher profit is a key skill to entrepreneur

Read More : www.foodbuddies.in