LESSON 1
THINK!
What is the difference between agricultural and food processing?
Agricultural processing industry is a subset of manufacturing that processes raw
materials and intermediate products derived from the agricultural sector. Agricultural
processing thus means transforming products that originate from farming.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
Illustrate and draw the unit operation for single pass rice mill.
In a one step milling process, husk and bran removal are done in one pass and milled or white
rice is produced directly out of paddy.
SUMMATIVE TEST
1. What are the classifications of food processing?
Primary Processing
These are the processing operation which does not heavily change the physical
characteristics of the product. Drying and dehydration of grains and fruits are examples
of this operation.
Secondary Processing
These are the processing operation which change the physical properties of the
product. On-plant processing such as converting banana into to catsup or mango to puree
are examples of this operation.
2. What factors contributed to the postharvest losses in grains and other agricultural food
products?
3. What are common units of operation in food processing?
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.
Cleaning
Foods by the nature of the way they are grown or produced on farms in open
environments often require cleaning before use. 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. Grains must be cleaned of
stones before use. 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.
Separating
The unit operation of separating can involve separating a solid from a solid, as in
the peeling of potatoes or the shelling of nuts; separating a solid from a liquid, as in the
many types of filtrations; or a liquid from a solid, as in pressing juice from a fruit. It
might involve the separation of a liquid from a liquid, as I centrifuging oil from water, or
removing a gas from a solid or a liquid, as in vacuum removal of air from canned food in
vacuum canning.
Disintegrating
Operations which subdivide large pieces of food into smaller units or particles are
classified as disintegrating. It may involve cutting, grinding, pulping, homogenizing, and
so on.
Pumping
One of the most common operations in the food industry is the moving of liquids
and solids from one location or processing step to another by pumping.
Mixing
Like pumps, there are scores of kinds of mixers, depending on the materials to be
mixed. One may wish to mix solids with solids, liquids with liquids, liquids with solids,
gases with liquids, and so on.
Heat Exchanger
Heating
We heat foods for many different reasons. Many foods are heated to destroy
microorganisms and preserve the food, for example, during pasteurization of milk and
canning of vegetables. Others are heated to drive off moisture and develop flavors, as
during the roasting of coffee and toasting of cereals. Still others are heated during normal
cooking to make them more tender and more palatable. Some food ingredients, such as
soybean meal, are heated to inactivate natural toxic substances. Foods are heated by
conduction, convection, radiation, or a combination of these.
Cooling
While heating is the addition of heat energy to foods, cooking is the removal of
heat energy. This may be done to the degree where food is chilled to refrigerator
temperature, or beyond this range to where the food is frozen. Primarily, we refrigerate
and freeze foods to prolong their keeping quality. But there are some foods that owe their
entire character to the frozen state. A prime example is ice cream.
Evaporation
Evaporation in the food industry is used principally to concentrate foods by the
removal of water. It is also used to recover desirable food volatiles and to remove
undesirable volatiles.
Drying
In drying, the object also is to remove water with minimum damage to the food.
Whereas evaporators will concentrate foods twofold or threefold, driers will take foods
very close to total dryness in many cases less than 2% or 3% water.
Forming
Foods must often be formed into specific shapes. For example, hamburger patties
are formed by gently compacting ground beef into a disk shape in various types of patty-
making machines, which apply controlled pressure to the beef within an appropriate
form. Forming is an important unit operation in the breakfast cereal and snack food
industries.
Packaging
Food is packaged for several purposes, including containment for shipping,
dispensing, and unitizing into appropriate sizes, and improving the usefulness of the
product. A primary reason is to protect it from microbial contamination, physical dirt,
insect invasion, light, moisture pickup, flavor pickup, moisture loss, flavor loss, and
physical abuse.
Controlling
Controlling may be considered a unit operation in itself. Its tools are valves,
thermometers, scales, thermostats, and a wide variety of other components and
instruments to measure and adjust such essential factors as temperature, pressure, fluid
flow, acidity, specific gravity, weight, viscosity, humidity, time, liquid level, and so on.
