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Preparatory/Unit Operations in Food

Introduction
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Processing 2

 A number of operations performed in food industry on daily basis

 Objective is to produce desired quality and safe food free of
unwanted constituents
 Processes used by food industry divided into common operations,
called unit operations involving physical or chemical change
 Examples include cleaning, coating, concentrating, controlling,
disintegrating, drying, evaporating, fermentation, forming,
heating/cooling (heat exchange), materials handling, mixing,
Dr. Muhammad Sohaib packaging, pumping, separating etc
Associate Professor  Operations also known as preparatory operations
[email protected]

Cont… Examples of Preparatory Operations

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 Unit operations utilized, making variety of food products  Handling and transportation of raw materials
 Cleaning
 Heat exchanging, or heating used to manufacture food products such  Sorting and Grading
as pasteurizing milk, sterilizing foods in cans, roasting peanuts, and  Peeling
baking bread  Removal of inedible constituents
 Unit operations also include activities like agitating, beating, blending,  Size reduction
diffusing, dispersing, emulsifying, homogenizing, kneading, stirring,  Mixing
 Filtration
whipping
 Heat transfer
 Key elements to food processing, proper selection and combination of  Concentration
unit operations into complex integrated processing systems  Drying
 Forming
 Packaging

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Handling and Transportation of Raw Materials Handling and Transportation of Raw Materials
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 An inferior raw material can never yield a good quality

product
 Proper handling and transportation of raw materials important

 If raw material contaminated before processed or preserved;

more effort required to make it fit for consumption
 Proper storage essential for handling food raw materials

 Operations include hand and mechanical harvesting on farm,

refrigerated trucking of perishable crops, box car
transportation of live cattle

Handling and Transportation of Raw Materials

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 Throughout operation, care must be taken

 To maintain sanitary condition
 To minimizing product losses (including weight loss in meat)
 To minimizing bacterial growthTo maintain raw material quality (vitamin &
minerals)

 Food movement, farm to processing plant need time

 Oranges, for example, moved by truck trailers to juice plants, graded and
washed
 Bulk dry sugar delivered to confectionery for developing food products,
must avoid dusting and caking/lumping may happen

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Important considerations for handling Cleaning

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 Container must be free from contaminants such as  Metal pieces, lubricating oil, grease and pieces of ropes, strings
 Fertilizer residues
 Chemicals
etc may be found in food
 Soils  Food raw materials carry several contaminants on their surface
 Toxic chemicals
 Microorganisms invariably present on all foods
 Second hand/used containers are of being used to handle/store the food
(Designated containers)  Carrots, potatoes that grow beneath soil possess larger & diverse
microflora than oranges, banana or tomatoes
 In Pakistan, 40-50% postharvest losses in fruits and vegetables
 Possible contamination of soil, sand, stones from field
reasoned to inadequate storage/handling
 Grains may carry foliage, twigs, stalks, and other plant materials

Conti.. Cleaning
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 Additionally, pesticide and fertilizer residues; major contaminants  Naturally, foods produced on farms in open environment require cleaning
before use
 Cleaning separates contaminants from food and disposes off same  Cleaning ranges from simple removal of dirt, egg shells with abrasive brush,
 Once food surface reasonably cleaned, effort is made to limit bacterial removal by passing it through microporous membrane
 Grains must be cleaned before use
recontamination and to leave cleaned surface in desired condition
 Cleaning done with
 Washing of vegetables in canal or stagnant water adds fine soil particle  Water
 Brushes
to vegetables, leaving surface contaminated  High speed air
 Steam
 Magnetic attraction
 mechanical separation

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Methods of cleaning Cont…

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 There are primarily two methods of cleaning, depending  Particles of different sizes, separated by screening- technique applied in
upon raw materials and contaminants home for separating coarse particles from flour
 Dry Cleaning
 If contaminant and food raw material are of different densities, then
aspiration is a suitable method
 Wet Cleaning

 Winnowing: It finds application in

 Dry Cleaning: Suitable for grains and other crops that are  Separation of wheat from straw
dry and would introduce technical problems if soaked in  Rice from husks
water  Groundnut skins from roasted groundnuts
 Bran from endosperm in flour milling

Conti… Conti…
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 Electronic metal detectors, employed to separate metallic contaminants  Abrasion and brushing is especially useful for heavily
such as nuts, bolts, pieces of broken equipment parts, etc. These remove contaminated foods such as potatoes, carrots, radish,
both ferrous and non-ferrous particles turnips and other roots, tubers that grow beneath the
soil surface
 Strong magnets are employed to eliminate nails, screw, pieces of wires
and other ferrous contaminants from the grains  Special brushes loosen and sometimes remove adhering
soil on food commodities in conjunction with other
cleaning methods
 Other techniques used in dry cleaning of food commodities employ the
principle of abrasion and brushing

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Wet cleaning Cont..

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 In wet cleaning, water is used for cleaning purpose  Soaking can be made more effective if product is moved or water is
 Water for cleaning should be of appropriate standards i.e. clean agitated
and free from pathogens and toxic substances  Use of ultrasonic waves (20-100kHz) for cleaning raw materials is also
popular choice
 Additionally, it should not contain dissolved solids and should be
 Spraying can also be applied separately or in conjunction with soaking
soft
 Efficiency of spraying process depends upon water pressure and its volume
 Proper arrangements for disposal of wastewater pre-requisite in
 Flotation and sedimentation used when density of contaminant is different
food industry
from raw material
 Heavily contaminated raw materials such as potatoes and carrots
are soaked for some time to loosen adhering soil

Conti… Cont..
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 In cleaning of rice and pulses (daals) destined for cooking, grains soaked  Combination of different cleaning techniques often applied in industry to
in water; all light particles float and removed from the surface achieve goal

 The heavier contaminants such as stones settle at bottom and then  Example inlcue like Potatoes
soaked in water, brushed and then
removed sprayed to effectively remove the adhering contaminants
 For wheat [production of flour], several techniques are employed
 Contaminants from fresh milk, fruit juices and syrups including screening, magnetic separation, aspiration and
normally removed by filtration washing before milling

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Sorting and Grading Cont…

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 Sorting is separation of raw materials into categories of  In food industry, sorting and grading form
different physical characteristics such as weight, size, essential part of processing
shape and color
 Normally, sorting and grading are
 Grading is separation into categories on the basis of carried out as integral operations
quality  However, finished product is often graded
again into one of the several grade
 Both sorting and grading together provide a means of categories depending upon its quality
segregating raw material into identical lots, that ensure
 Raw materials are sorted on the basis of
uniform quality of the finished product
weight, size, shape or color

Weight sorting Size Sorting

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 Weight sorters machines that weigh individual item and  Foods of similar size convenient for mechanized operations like peeling
separate into different categories (potatoes), blanching, extraction, canning, dehydration and freezing

 Eggs are normally sorted by weight and packed in trays  Food sorting on size basis is also important for effective use of processing
machinery
 Food materials sold by weight include meat cuts, pass
through computer controlled machine which weighs item,  Common size sorter used in home fixed aperture screen (seive) for
record weight, computes price and prints out weight removing tea leaves
label

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Color sorting Peeling, Shelling and Skinning

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 Color sorting vital as color uniformity fetch a higher price food product  Nature protects food crops and animals from external forces
 Usually carried out with help of manual labour on field or inspection belts attack through a protective covering
 Electronic color sorters, scan color of each individual food using photocell  The covering is known as peel, husk, shell or skin

 Equipment allows material of the matching color to pass through while  Peeling practiced in fruits, vegetables and tubers crops
rejecting foods of different color by means of an air stream processing
 Hand peeling using ordinary or peeling knife requires minimal
investment
 Hand peeling replaced with modern methods like abrasion
peeling

Cont… Cont…
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 Some raw materials e.g., eggs and  Peeling by heat is advantageous as losses are minimum
groundnuts have thick and hard protective and process can easily be automated
covering called shell
 In this technique, boiling water or steam lose peel, easily
 Removal of shell is known as shelling removed by hand/scrubber or water spray

 Animals like cattle, goat, sheep slaughtered and skinned  Flame peelers employed for peeling onions, garlic,
tomatoes, and peppers by exposing them to direct flame
 Poultry birds are skinned or defeathered using hot water or to hot gases
or dry defeathering method

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Conti.. Lye peeling

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 Mechanical peeler more suitable to apples, carrots,  In lye peeling, hot sodium hydroxide solution (1-2%) used for about
and potatoes 30 sec to 2 min depending upon raw material
 This method is suitable to all shapes, sizes and varieties
 It consists of upright cylinder, provided in bottom with
 Peeling losses less compared to hand peeling
rapidly revolving disc that undergoes undulatory
movement  Method used on large scale production

 The inner walls of cylinder and disc coated with

abrasive material called corborundum

Conti… Disintegrating
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 Novel technologies  Operations which subdivide large pieces of food into smaller ones
 Freeze peeling  It may involve cutting, grinding, pulping, homogenizing etc
 Vacuum peeling
 Dicing fruits and vegetables using automatic machines, cutting meat
 Dry caustic peeling
 Acid peeling animals manual; laborious and time-consuming process
 Calcium chloride peeling  Disintegrating by grinding as in burger involve heating due to friction
 Ammonium salt peeling
 May be damaging to product as denature proteins or give burned
 Major emphasis is on
a. Minimize the peeling loss
flavors to ground coffee
b. Improve quality of peeled material  Dry ice added to chill meat or other food products

c. Reduce pollution of waste water disposal

d. Reduce peeling cost

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Cont.. Pumping
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 Effective than regular ice since as regular ice melt and water food  Common operations in food industry like moving liquids
 Dry ice goes off carbon dioxide, not change food composition and solids from one location or processing to another using pumps
 Homogenizing produces disintegration of fat globules in milk or cream  Many kinds of pumps; choice depend on character of food to be

from large globules and clusters into minute globules moved

 Smaller fat globules remain evenly distributed throughout the milk or  Common type is rotary gear pump
cream with less tendency to coalesce and separate from the water  A single screw pump best for moving food with large pieces without
phase of the milk. disintegration
 Disintegrating fat globule done by forcing milk under high pressure  An essential feature is ease of disassembly for thorough cleaning
called homogenization using homogenizer

Cont.. Mixing
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 Various mixer types depending raw materials

 One may wish to mix solids with solids, liquids with liquids, liquids with solids,
gases with liquids, and so on

 For simple mixing of dry ingredients such as components making baking

power, conical blender more suitable as bowl has tumbling action and this may
be continued for 10-20 min until the mixture made homogenous

 Preparing a dry cake mix,

 processor mix shortening into the flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients in
order to produce a fluffy homogeneous dry mix using ribbon blender

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Conti.. Heat exchanger

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 Food heated for different reasons

 Some Foods heated to destroy microorganisms and preserve them
including pasteurization of milk and canning of vegetables
 Some foods heated to drive off moisture and develop flavor as in
roasting of coffee
 Others heated during normal cooking to make tender and palatable
 Some food ingredients like soybean meal, heated to inactivate natural
toxic
 Foods heated by conduction, convection, radiation or combination

Conti..
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 Plate heat exchangers

 In plate exchanger, food is given maximum contact with heating source
 Accomplished by dividing food into thin layers in contact with heated plates
to pasteurize milk
 Milk flows across one side of plates whereas, hot water or steam heats
flows on other side
 Equipment used for quick cooling with cold water or brine instead of hot
water
 Plate heat exchanger used for liquid foods having low density

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Conti.. Evaporation
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 Tube heat exchangers  Used in food industry, principally to concentrate foods by removal of
 Composed of tubes of different width water
 Within a tube, product and heating or cooling medium flowing in opposite
 Also used to recover desirable food volatiles and remove undesirable
directions
 Low cost
volatiles
 Used for fluids of higher viscosities  Simplest evaporation; sun evaporates water from sea water, leaves

 Swept Surface exchanger behind salt

 Have blades that scrape surface of heat exchanger  Evaporation occurs; a heated kettle used to boil water from sugar
 Bring new product continuously to heating or cooling surface syrup, as in candy-making
 Used for fluids of very high viscosity
 Spray drying; Liquid milk dried to milk powder using evaporation
 Example: Ice cream

Cont.. Forming
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 Evaporators differ widely in their design

 Principal objective of vacuum evaporators is to

remove water at temperature low enough to avoid
heat damage to food

 Multiple stage evaporators remove water at 50°C

designed to boil off water at temperatures as low as
21°C

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Forming Cont…
45  Processes involved include
 Foods must often be formed into specific shapes  Compacting

 Burger patties formed using patty maker of beef using pressure  Pressure
 Extrusion
 Uniform pressure essential otherwise product vary in shape
 Molds
 Pressure extrusion through dies forms doughs into spaghetti and
 Powders & binding agents
pasta products
 Heat and pressure
 In confectionery industry, besides pressure extrusion, candies
 Extrusion cooking
formed by depositing fondants, chocolate, and jellies into  Used for
appropriate molds followed by cooling and hardening process
 Patties, chocolates, tablets, butter, sausages, breads, margarine bars,
Cheeses etc.

Cont… Packaging
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 Confectionary food items formed using powdered ➢ Food packaged for several purposes, including containment
for shipping, unitizing into appropriate sizes, and improving
ingredients by application of intense pressure in special usefulness
tableting machines ➢ Primary reason to protect from
 Forming vital in breakfast cereal and snack foods as give  Microbial contamination
characteristic shapes which result from pressure extrusion  Physical dirt
of cereals  Insect invasion
 Further examples of forming include butter and  Light
 Moisture pickup
margarine bars, manipulations given to bread dough to
 Flavor pickup
produce variety of breads, and shaping of sausage
 Moisture and flavor loss
products in natural and artificial flexible casings  Physical abuse

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Cont.. New Processes

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 Major goal of food scientist & technologists as well as food
 Foods packaged in metal cans, glass and plastic bottles, paper and processing engineers
paperboard, wide variety of plastic and metallic films
 Always looking to improve quality and/or increase efficiency
 Machines operate at high
speeds and automatically
package food products in step-wise and automated fashion
from forming, filling, sealing, labeling and stacking the food
container

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