ONCE UPON A TIME IN A

FOODFACTORY

Written By

A short story of transformation of food

Areeb IrshadEdited By

Vijaya Parmar

This story is focused on the journey of transformation from wheat to bread.Since there are hundreds of foods that could have been described, I’vechosen this one to give you an insight of what happens in a food factory. To the professionals who are reading this, I have intentionally removedsome unit operations, so that it is enjoyable for the beginners. (After all, it’sa story, right?) All the processes, scientific terms and equipment mentioned in this storyare real. The resemblance to any food factory is purely intentional. Somewhite loaves of bread were harmed and discarded during the process, tomaintain the quality standard of the lot.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN...

Almost everyone has eaten bread at some point in their life. But have you ever wondered how bread becomes,

Well, some of you are going to say that –

How something dry and fine like wheat flour gets converted into a soft white bread?

'THE BREAD'?

Yeah I know, it’s made fromwheat flour/refined wheat

flour

But How???

?

Like every story’s hero, our bread also faces a lot of hurdles, tosatisfy the hunger and taste of the consumer. And just in caseyou’re thinking that white bread has a lot of chemicals orpreservatives, then how can it be a ‘hero’? Well, I really don’tcare whether you think of it as a hero or villain. What reallymatters here that you enjoy the story and learn from it! Even a villain has strong character development in a lot of stories.

The origin of wheat is based on a farm, just like every grain.Sowing of wheat (in India) takes place in the months ofOctober-December and is harvested in the months fromFebruary to May. The wheat grain must go through differentstages to be first converted into flour and later the flour is usedas an ingredient in bread making.

Consider it this way – Wheat grain grows in a farm, which is likeits school, but now it must go to a coaching centre to crack IIT-JEE. The coaching centre is a ‘Mill’ and the process ofconversion from wheat grain to wheat flour is called ‘Milling’. But the struggles of coaching are not as simple as they sound.Just like a student is made to take multiple tests in a coachingcentre, similarly, the wheat kernel must go through a series ofrollers to break the kernel into finer particles which arecollected after going through a set of sieves. The flour/refinedwheat flour (maida) is packed and transported to bakeries/retailshops but in our case, a bread factory! One important point to remember: the food factories havecertain quality standards for incoming raw materials like flour,sugar etc. that must be met. If the incoming raw products don’tmatch their standards, they’ll reject the material from thesupplier. Just like any IIT won’t accept student who didn’t getenough marks to meet their admission criteria.

Milling

BreadFactory

And now it is time for the student to attend the college. Ah! Thecollege days! Who doesn’t love their college days? Friendships,crushes, fights, boring and exciting lectures, lab practicals,college fest, fresher’s day and farewell, semester exams,presentations, useless assignments (okay maybe not all of them)but the list is endless! College days were full of ups and downs,but they were necessary to make you the person that you’vebecome.

Just like college days are full of 10 different scenarios takingplace in just a single day, in a similar way, multiple operationsgoes on in a food factory at the same time. These operations are- mixing of ingredients, dividing the dough, moulding, baking,packaging etc. And these operations are known as ‘UnitOperations’. All these unit operations combined are known as a‘Food Process’ or ‘Food Processing’. Hey just in case you’rewondering whether food processing is same as food technologyor not, we’ll get there in a bit so stick with me. 😊

After the arrival of flour/refined flour in the food plant, the firststep in the bread-making is mixing the ingredients and kneadingthe dough. Before mixing, the flour is sieved once again to makesure that the particles are fine and do not have any impurities.It’s like a mid-semester exam. Now the flour is mixed with otheringredients like water, sugar, yeast, salt, preservatives,emulsifiers etc. Just to give you an idea, the prepared dough canweigh somewhere between 50 kgs to 70kgs depending on thecapacity of dough mixer and requirements of the food plant. After mixing and kneading for a fixed amount of time, theprepared dough is transferred to the dough dividing section.Now dough divider is important equipment that divides thehuge mass of dough into smaller doughs. These smaller divideddoughs will further transform into loaves of bread.

Dough MixerMachine

Ingredients

PreparedDough

Dough Divider

The divided dough is further passed through a series of rollersto give the dough a cylindrical shape and it is placed into themoulds. Just like ice cubes get their shape from the ice tray inwhich they are stored, the final bread gets its shape from thehollow moulds in which the dough is placed. Getting bored? I know. College life is full of boring and excitingparts and whether a student likes it or not, he/she has to gothrough every single one of these phases to get a degree. Justlike that, our dough has to go through a number of unitoperations to be transformed into a desired bread.

Anyways, moving on to the next unit operation which increasesthe volume of the dough, known as ‘Proofing/Proving’. After thedough has been placed in the moulds, their lid is closed and allthe moulds are kept for 1-2 hours for proving, which is the finalrise in bread dough before baking. This is the time whenfermentation takes place because of yeast, and the volume ofthe dough expands because of the release of CO2 from thedough.

Proofing/Proving is like another semester exam where a breaddough has to ‘rise’ up to the expectations of the companystandards. If the dough didn’t rise up to the mark, then theremust have been some faults during the process, like impropermixing of the ingredients, improper formulation of theingredients, inadequate proofing time or poorly maintainedequipment. Hey, by the way, you must have noticed in your college thatthere were some students who'd rock the freshers, be theanchors of an event, organize the college fest etc. These are themoments which would define these students for their wholecollege life. What do I mean by this? Stay with me... Students in the

limelight 😉

Proofing ofbread

A student is usually known among his class/batch. But only afew students from other batch know him/her. Now, with thehelp of events like a fest/freshers, some students becomefamous and known for their act/dance/song etc. That means,these events ‘define’ the personality and leaves an impression infront of the whole college. The next stage in the process is as important as a fest orfreshers/farewell party is in a student’s life. This unit operationwhich ‘defines’ the final colour, texture and taste of the bread isknown as ‘Baking’. Baking takes place in an oven which ispreheated at a temperature ranging from 190 degree Celsius to220 degree Celsius.

Let's not get into the chemistry part of baking, but I’ll let youknow what happens by the end of baking. After baking, thebread comes out with a characteristic golden colour andmesmerizing aroma. The bread has developed a sweet anddesirable taste, while most of the water is evaporated as steamduring the application of heat in an oven.

The freshly baked hot bread loaves are removed from theirmoulds and these moulds are cooled and cleaned so that theycan be reused again in the moulding process. The bread loavesare placed in racks which are transferred to the cooling sectionwhere the loaves are kept for about 3-4 hours at a temperatureranging from 16 degree Celsius to 18 degree Celsius. After cooling, the bread loaves are transferred to a high-speedbread slicer for cutting the loaf into slices. These slices are nowgoing to appear for campus placements. Say WHAAAT? Just afew minutes ago, we were talking about freshers and how comethe placements are here? Well, the process duration of bread(6-7 hours) is much faster than a student’s college life (3-4years). I mean this is obvious, isn’t it? 😉

CoolingSection

Baking

Campus placements of students are similar to the distribution ofthe bread to the retailers. But before the interview, studentshave to be fully prepared with their resume, clothes that they’regoing to wear etc. Before packaging, a few samples of the bread loaves are takenfor testing. Testing of what? Testing of protein content, sugarcontent, moisture content, sensory analysis and other attributesthat define the bread. The weight of the bread is also measured,which should fall among a specific range defined by themanufacturer. This is like the written or aptitude test before theactual interview so that only quality students proceed forward.

In simple words, the packaging is like a student’s appearance,formal clothes that he/she wears during the interview, toimpress the interviewer and make a good impression. Whereaslabelling is like a CV/Resume, which briefly explains thecharacteristics of the student/bread.

And now is the time for the final stage of the campusplacements, the INTERVIEW. In the case of students, there areseveral questions asked in the interview. But in the case of ourpackaged bread, only a single attribute is strictly checked, whichis the presence of metallic fragments in the bread. This attributeis absolutely critical. So much critical that if a bread passesbeyond this point, possessing a hazard, could possibly causenegative health effects or serious injuries to the consumer. The consequences for the manufacturer which are serious andinclude compensation claims and expensive recalls. Even biggerand longer-lasting damage is caused by the negative brandimage and the loss of consumer trust caused by impure foodproducts. (Source: www.sesotec.com)

Labelling

Packaging

This stage is known as ‘Metal Detection’ where the loaves ofbread are passed through a metal detector while being placedon a conveyor. Metal detectors are used primarily for the safetyof the consumers. As the name suggests, this equipment detectsthe presence of metallic fragments that could have entered intothe food product during the process. If any packaged bread has a metallic fragment which passesthrough the detector, it immediately sounds an alarm and theconveyor belt stops all of a sudden so that the defective breadcould be removed and separated.

And now, the packaged loaves of bread are ready to bedistributed to the retailers/bakeries/supermarkets etc. fromwhere they can be purchased by the smallerretailers/consumers. Our dear bread has come a long waystarting from a small wheat kernel, then being completelytransformed into a delightful bread! By meeting the rightconsumer, the bread’s purpose will be fulfilled. 😊

Wait a minute, I completely forgot to describe some of the keyconcepts! Remember I told you earlier to stick with me if you want tounderstand the difference between food processing and foodtechnology? Since I’ve now explained the bread-making process, I think thisis the right time to describe some key concepts which oftenconfuses a lot of students.

MetalDetector

BreadsDispatched

Retailers/Supermarkets

Food Science: When we perform different experiments on food,we get results which define physical, chemical and biochemicalnature of food. The study of this nature of food is known asfood science. Food Technology: The information generated by food science isused in selection, preservation, processing, packaging etc. of afood product. This application of food science to produce a foodproduct is known as food technology. Food science is thebuilding block of food technology. Without knowledge of foodscience, a food technologist will never be able to design aprocess and develop a food product. Food Processing: Food processing is the conversion of food intoa finished product to enhance its shelf life/improvenutrition/enhance taste or visual appeal. Example: Baking. Food Engineering: Involves the study of equipment/machines orinstruments that are used in the processing of a food product.Purpose of the food engineering is to make the processing offood more efficient, easier or faster. Example: Conveyors andautomated machines can be used in a food plant to reduce the labour cost and increase the processing speed.

KEY CONCEPTS

Do you think this story was fun and informative? Or do you think this was boring and confusing? We’d love to listen to your thoughts and feedback!You can write to us – foodtechsimplified@gmail.comor DM on Instagram @foodtech_simplified