Preliminary Unit

Operations
Preliminary Unit Operations

Preliminary
operations
Material
s Cleanin Gradin
Sorting
handlin g g
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 Materials Handling
• Materials handling includes such varied
operations as hand and mechanical
harvesting on the farm, refrigerated
trucking of perishable produce, box car
transportation of live cattle, and pneumatic
conveying of flour from rail car to bakery
storage bins.
• The movement of produce from farm to
processing plant and of raw materials
through the plant may take many forms.
• Oranges, for example, are moved by truck
trailers to juice plants, where they are
graded and washed.
• There is a limit to the size the trucks, may be and
the length of time, the fruit may be held since
fruits and vegetables are alive, respire, and can
cause the temperature of a batch to rise to the
point where complete spoilage may occur.
• Throughout such operations emphasis must be
given to
• maintaining sanitary conditions,
• minimizing product losses (including weight loss of
livestock),
• maintaining raw material quality (e.g., vitamin
content and physical appearance),
• minimizing bacterial growth, and
• timing all transfers and deliveries so as to
minimize holdup time, which can be costly as well
as detrimental to product quality.
Cleaning Operations
• Cleaning is the complete removal of residues and
impurities from surfaces, leaving them visually
clean.
• Cleaning ranges from simple removal of dirt from
egg shells with an abrasive brush to the complex
removal of bacteria from a liquid food by passing
it through a microporous membrane.
• Cleaning can be accomplished with brushes, high-
velocity air, steam, water, vacuum, magnetic
attraction of metal contaminants, mechanical
separation, and so on, depending on the product
and the nature of the dirt.
• The cleaning operation of water comprises of
additional treatments as controlled chemical
flocculation of suspended matter, sand filtration,
carbon purification, microfiltration, and de
aeration.
• Just as different food materials require special
cleaning, the surfaces of food processing
equipment need thorough and frequent attention.
• The cleaning of equipment, as well as a facility's
walls and floors, must take into consideration the
chemical and physical properties of both the
surface to be cleaned and the type of soil.
• Many types of soil can be removed with mildly
alkaline detergents, but strong alkali may be
required for more tenacious deposits and heavy
deposits of fats and oils or built up protein deposits.
• Alkaline films and hard-water scales may require
mildly acid detergents.
• Strong alkalis also are corrosive to various metals
and to glass. For these reasons, moderately
alkaline and neutral detergents find wide
application in the food industry.
Classification

Cleani
ng
Dry Wet
 Dry Cleaning
• Effective method for low moisture
food processing environments
• Eg: grain and cereal processors
(milling)
• Dry blending (spices, cake mixes)
• It reduces the risk of product
contamination an pest infections
Methods of dry Cleaning
• Screening:
• Size separators/ Sorting machines used as
cleaning equipment for removing contaminants of
different size.
• Machine useful in cleaning fine materials but
must be frequently cleaned to remove oversized
contaminants.
• They have high capacity and are inexpensive to
install maintain and to operate.
• Drawback: Difficult to clean unless designed
properly.
Abrasion Cleaning:
• Abrasion between food particles or between food
and moving parts of cleaning machinery is used
to loosen and remove adhering contaminants
Magnetic Cleaning:
• This involves cascading the contaminated
stream of food raw material over one or
more magnets which are located
underneath a conveyer.
Aspiration Cleaning (Winnowing):
• Aspiration cleaning is based on the
differences in the aerodynamic properties of
materials i.e. materials differing in
buoyancy.
• Raw material to clean is fed into a stream of
air flowing at controlled velocity to separate
raw materials into two or more streams.
• This method cannot be used with oxidation-
sensitive materials.
Aspiration cleaning
 Miscellaneous Dry Cleaning
Electrostatic Cleaning:
• This method takes advantage of difference in
electrostatic charging of materials under controlled
humidity conditions, charged particles being removed
by oppositely charged or earthed rollers, grids etc., .
• Used in dust extraction.
Radio Isotope Separation:
• In this type of separation, clods of earth and stones
may be separated from potatoes using low energy
gamma radiation emitted by 241Am isotope to which
potatoes are opaque.
X-ray Separation:
• Food is passed through an X-ray scanner and the
image is viewed on the fluorescent screen. Operator
stops the conveyor when contamination is seen and it
is removed manually
 Wet Cleaning
• Effective method for moisture food
processing environments
• Uses water for cleaning
• Advantage: Removal of firmly
adherent soils
• Drawback: Use of large quantity
water and generation of large
volume of effluent.
• Types – Soaking, spray washing,
floating wash, ultrasonic cleaning
Soaking:
• Soaking is the simplest method.
• Soaking softens adhering soil and
also facilitates the removal of sand, stones and other
abrasive materials.
• Efficiency of the soaking is improved by agitation.
Use of warm water and detergents increases the
efficiency.
Spray Washing:
• Surface of the food is subjected to water sprays.
• Efficiency depends on some parameters like water
pressure, volume of water, temperature, distance of
the food from jets, time of spraying and number of
spray jets used.
• Most effective combination is small volume of water
at high pressure. Some of the washers are Spray
drum washer, Spray belt washer and Rubber disc
Floating Washing:
• Floating washing depends on difference in the
buoyancy of the desired and undesired parts of food
raw material to be cleaned.
• Froth flotation has been used to separate peas from
weed seeds by immersing the peas in dilute mineral
oil-detergent emulsion through which air is blown,
contaminants are removed from the foam.
Ultrasonic Cleaning:
• Sound waves of frequencies about 16kHz are used.
• Insolation of a fluid with ultrasonic waves at
frequencies in the range of 20-100kHz produces a
rapidly alternating pressure in the path of the waves
and this leads to the rapid formation and collapse of
bubbles in the fluid.
• Effect is called cavitation and decavitation, results in
the release of energy causing violent agitation.
Ultrasonic cleaning helps in loosening adherent dirt.
SORTING
• Sorting may be regarded as a
separation operation based on the
differences in physical properties of
the food raw materials/products
• Sorting methods are classified as
• Weight Sorting
• Size Sorting
• Shape Sorting
• Photometric/Color Sorting
Weight Sorting
• Weight of a food is proportional to the cube
of its characteristic dimension and hence
weight sorting is more precise compared to
dimensional sorting.
• Typical weight sorting machines carry fruits
in the red canvas packets attached to the
pivoted beams fitted with counterbalance
weights.
Shape Sorting
• It is adopted when food raw materials
contain undesirable material even after
size or weight sorting and cleaning.
• Disc sorter is used for shape sorting.
Size sorting
• Different types of screens are
used for size separation of foods.
• Two commonly used screen
designs are Variable aperture
screens using cable, belts, rollers
or screw sorters and fixed
aperture screens using stationary,
vibratory, rotary, gyratory or
reciprocating screens.
• Variable aperture screens with
continuously variable aperture of
roller, belt or screw type find use
in size sorting of fruits and
vegetables.
• Fixed aperture screens of flat-bed
type are used in preliminary
sorting of potatoes, carrots and
turnips.
Photometric/Color Sorting
• This uses optical properties
(reflectance and transmittance) of
foods to effect separation of desired
raw material from contaminants.
• Reflectance properties are used to
indicate raw material maturity,
presence of surface defects and
extent of heat processing.
Transmittance properties are used to
indicate the internal properties of
foods
GRADING
 Grading
• Grading is quality separation on the basis of an
overall assessment of properties, which affect the
acceptance of the raw material for processing
and finished food product for consumer
acceptance and safety.
• Food grading involves the inspection, assessment
and sorting of various foods regarding quality,
freshness, legal conformity and market value
• Food grading often occurs by hand, in which
foods are assessed and sorted.
• Machinery is also used to grade foods, and may
involve sorting products by size, shape and
quality
• For example, machinery can be used to remove
spoiled food from fresh product
 Grading factors
• Process suitability
• Consumer safety
• Conformity with legal requirement
• Consumer acceptance
 Grading Parameters
• Size and Shape as functional and
acceptability factors
• Maturity, Ripening and Aging factor

• Texture, Crispness and Viscosity

• Flavor and Aroma
• Color
• Blemishes
 Grading types
• Grading methods are classified into two
types
• Quality control procedures in which quality of
the food is determined by laboratory tests on
samples drawn statistically from a batch of
food
• Procedures in which the total quantity of food
is subjected to physical separation in quality
categories. This grading may be carried out
manually or by specialized machines.
 Grading of foods
Peas
• Pea grading involves sorting peas by size, in which smallest
peas are graded as the highest quality for their tenderness.
• Brines may be used, in which peas are floated in them,
from which their density can be determined.
Potatoes
• Density assessment can be performed by floating them in
brines
• High density potatoes are desirable in the production of
dehydrated mashed potatoes, potato crisps and french fries
Rice
• The main criteria used by many countries and millers in
rice grading are degree of milling, appearance (color),
damaged (broken) and percentage of chalky kernels.
• In the United States rice is marketed according to three
main properties size, color and condition (kernels damage),
these properties are directly related to quality, milling