FOOD INDUSTRY PROCESSES

M. Malagié, G. Jensen, J.C. Graham and Donald L. Smith*

*This article is adapted from the 3rd edition “Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health”
articles “Food industries”, by M Malagié; “Frozen food industry”, by G. Jenson; and
“Canning and food preserving”, by J.C. Graham, which were revised by Donald L.
Smith.

The term food industries covers a series of industrial activities directed at the
processing, conversion, preparation, preservation and packaging of foodstuffs
(see table 67.1). The raw materials used are generally of vegetable or animal origin
and produced by agriculture, farming, breeding and fishing. This article provides an
overview of the complex of food industries. Other articles in this chapter and
Encyclopaedia deal with particular food industry sectors and particular hazards.

Table 67.1 The food industries, their raw materials and processes

Industry Materials processed Storage requirements Processing techniques Preserving techniques

Meat processing Beef, lamb, pork, Cold stores Slaughtering, cutting up, Salting, smoking,
and preserving poultry boning, comminuting, refrigeration, deep-
cooking freezing, sterilization
Fish processing All types of fish Cold stores or salted Heading, gutting, filleting, Deep-freezing, drying,
loose or in barrels cooking smoking, sterilization
Fruit and Fresh fruit and Processed immediately; Blanching or cooking, Sterilization,
vegetable vegetables fruits may be stabilized grinding, vacuum- pasteurization, drying,
preserving with sulphur dioxide concentration of juices dehydration,
lyophilization (freeze
drying)
Milling Grains Silos may be fumigated Grinding, sifting, milling, Drying cooking or
in storage rolling baking

Baking Flour and other dry Silos, super sacks and Kneading, fermentation, Baking, cutting surface
goods, water, oils bags laminating surface treatments and
treatments of seasoning packaging
Biscuit making Flour, cream, butter, Silos, super sacks and Mixing, kneading, Baking, cutting surface
sugar, fruit and bags laminating moulding treatments and
seasoning packaging
Pasta Flour, eggs Silos Kneading, grinding, Drying
manufacture cutting, extrusion or
moulding
Sugar processing Sugar beet, sugar cane Silos Crushing, maceration, Vacuum cooking
and refining vacuum concentration,
centrifuging, drying
Chocolate Cocoa bean sugar, fats Silos, sacks, conditioned Roasting, grinding, -
making and chambers mixing, conching,
confectionery moulding
Brewing Barley, hops Silos, tanks, conditioned Grain milling, malting, Pasteurization
cellars brewing, filter pressing,
fermentation
Distilling and Fruit, grain, carbonated Silos, tanks, vats Distillation, blending, Pasteurization
manufacture of water aeration
other beverages
Milk and milk Milk, sugar, other Immediate processing; Skimming, churning Pasteurization,
products constituents subsequently in ripening (butter), coagulation sterilization or
processing vats, conditioned vats, (cheese), ripening concentration,
cold store desiccation
Processing of Groundnuts, olives, Silos, tanks, cold stores Milling, solvent or steam Pasteurization where
oils and fats dates, other fruit and extraction, filter pressing necessary
grain, animal or
vegetable fats

The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging
from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labour intensive, to large,
capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries
depend almost entirely on local agriculture or fishing. In the past, this meant seasonal
production and hiring of seasonal workers. Improvements in food processing and
preservation technologies have taken some of the pressure off workers to process food
quickly to prevent spoilage. This has resulted in a decrease in seasonal employment
fluctuations. However, certain industries still have seasonal activities, such as fresh
fruit and vegetable processing and increases in production of baked goods, chocolate
and so forth for holiday seasons. Seasonal workers are often women and foreign
workers.

The world’s food product output has been increasing. World exports of food products
in 1989 totalled US$290 billion, a 30% increase over 1981. Industrialized market
economy countries had a 67% share of this export. Much of this increase can be
attributed to an increased demand for processed food and drink, especially in
developing countries where the market has not yet been saturated.
This increase in output of food and drink products, however, has not resulted in
increased employment because of intensified competition, which has resulted in
decreased employment in many food industries, especially in industrialized countries.
This is due to increased productivity and mechanization in many of these industries.

Demographic pressure, uneven distribution of agricultural resources and the need to

insure preservation of food products to facilitate their better distribution explain the
rapid technical evolution in the food industries. Constant economic and marketing
pressures drive the industry to provide new and different products for market, while
other operations may make the same product in the same way for decades. Even
highly industrialized facilities often resort to seemingly archaic techniques when
starting new products or processes. In practice, to satisfy population requirements,
there is a need not only for a sufficient quantity of foodstuffs, which presupposes an
increase of production, but also strict control of sanitation to obtain the quality
essential to maintain the health of the community. Only modernization of techniques
justified by production volumes in a stable production environment will eliminate
manual handling hazards. In spite of the extreme diversity of the food industries, the
preparation processes can be divided into handling and storage of raw materials,
extraction, processing, preservation and packaging.

Handling and Storage

Manipulation of the raw materials, the ingredients during processing and the finished
products is varied and diverse. The current trend is to minimize manual handling by
mechanization, through “continuous processing” and automation. Mechanical
handling may involve: self-propelled in-plant transport with or without palletization or
super or bulk sacks (often containing several thousand pounds of dry powder
material); conveyor belts (e.g., with beets, grain and fruit); bucket elevators (e.g., with
grain and fish); spiral conveyors (e.g., with confectionery and flour); air fluming (e.g.,
for unloading grain, sugar or nuts and for transport of flours).

Storage of raw materials is most important in a seasonal industry (e.g., sugar refining,
brewing, grain processing and canning). It is usually done in silos, tanks, cellars, bins
or cold stores. Storage of the finished products varies according to their nature (liquid
or solid), the method of preserving and the method of packaging (loose, in sack or
super sack, in bundles, boxes or bottles); and the respective premises must be planned
to suit the conditions of handling and preserving (traffic aisles, ease of access,
temperature and humidity suited to product, cold-storage installations). Commodities
may be held in oxygen-deficient atmospheres or under fumigation while in storage or
just before shipment.
Extraction

To extract a specific food product from fruit, cereals or liquids, any of the following
methods may be used: crushing, pounding or grinding, extraction by heat (direct or
indirect), extraction by solvents, drying and filtration.

Crushing, pounding and grinding are usually preparatory operations—for example,

the crushing of cocoa beans and the slicing of sugar beet. In other cases it may be the
actual extraction process, as in flour milling.

Heat can be used directly as a means of preparation by extraction, as in roasting (e.g.,

cocoa, coffee and chicory); in manufacturing it is usually used directly or indirectly in
the form of steam (e.g., extraction of edible oils or extraction of sweet juice from thin
slices of beet in the sugar industry).

Oils can be extracted equally well by combining and mixing the crushed fruit with
solvents that are later eliminated by filtering and reheating. The separation of liquid
products is carried out by centrifuging (turbines in a sugar refinery) or by filtering
through filter presses in breweries and in oil and fat production.

Production Processes

Operations in processing food products are extremely varied and can be described
only after individual study of each industry, but the following general procedures are
used: fermentation, cooking, dehydration and distillation.

Fermentation, obtained usually by addition of a micro-organism to the previously

prepared product, is practiced in bakeries, breweries, the wine and spirits industry and
the cheese products industry. (See also the chapter Beverage industry [BEV00AE].)

Cooking occurs in many manufacturing operations: canning and preserving of meat,

fish, vegetables and fruits; ready-to-serve meat-processing plants (e.g., chicken
nuggets); in bakeries, biscuit making, breweries; and so on. In other cases, cooking is
done in a vacuum-sealed container and produces a concentration of the product (e.g.,
sugar refining and tomato-paste production).

Besides the drying of products by the sun, as with many tropical fruits, dehydration
can be carried out in hot air (fixed dryers or drying tunnels), by contact (on a drying
drum heated by steam, such as in the instant-coffee industry and the tea industry),
vacuum drying (often combined with filtering) and lyophilization (freeze drying),
where the product is first frozen solid and then dried by vacuum in a heated chamber.
Distillation is used in the making of spirits. The fermented liquid, treated to separate
grain or fruit, is vaporized in a still; the condensed vapour is then collected as liquid
ethyl alcohol.

Preservation Processes

It is important to prevent any deterioration of food products, as much for the quality of
the products as for the more serious risk of contamination or threat to the consumers’
health.

There are six basic methods of food preservation:

1. radiation sterilization

2. antibiotic sterilization

3. chemical action

4. dehydration

5. refrigeration.

Briefly, the first three methods destroy microbial life; the latter merely inhibit growth.
Raw ingredients such as fish and meat, fruit or vegetables are taken fresh and
preserved by one of the above methods, or a mixture of different foods are processed
to form a product or dish, which is then preserved. Such products include soups, meat
dishes and puddings.

Food preservation goes back to the last Ice Age, about 15,000 BC, when Cro-Magnon
humans discovered for the first time a way of preserving food by smoking it. The
evidence for this lies in the caves at Les Eyzies in the Dordogne in France, where this
way of life is well portrayed in carvings, engravings and paintings. From then to the
present day, although many methods have been used and still are, heat remains one of
the principal cornerstones of food preservation.

High-temperature processes can destroy bacteria, depending on the cooking

temperature and duration. Sterilization (mainly used in canneries) involves submitting
the already canned product to the action of steam, generally in a closed container such
as an autoclave or continuous cooker. Pasteurization—the term is particularly
reserved for liquids such as fruit juice, beer, milk or cream—is carried out at a lower
temperature and for a short time. Smoking is carried out mainly on fish, ham and
bacon, assuring dehydration and giving a distinctive flavor.
Ionizing radiation sterilization is used heavily on spices in some countries to reduce
wastage and spoilage. “Radiation pasteurization” using much lower doses enables the
refrigerated shelf life of many foods to be considerably extended. However, sterilizing
canned foods with radiation requires such high dosage that unacceptable flavours and
odours result.

Ionizing radiation has two other well recognized uses in the food industry—the
screening of food packs for foreign matter and monitoring to detect underfilling.

Microwave sterilization is another type of electromagnetic emission that is currently

finding use in the food industry. It is used for rapidly thawing raw frozen ingredients
before further processing, as well as for heating frozen cooked foods in 2 to 3
minutes. Such a method, with its low moisture content loss, preserves the appearance
and flavour of the food.

Drying is a common preservation process. Sun drying is the oldest and most widely
used method of food preservation. Today foodstuffs may be dried in air, superheated
steam, in vacuum, in inert gas and by direct application of heat. Many types of dryers
exist, the particular type being dependent on the nature of the material, the desired
form of finished product and so on. Dehydration is a process in which heat is
transferred into the water in the food, which is vapourized. The water vapour is then
removed.

Low-temperature processes involve storage in a cold store (the temperature

determined by the nature of the products), freezing and deep-freezing, which allows
foodstuffs to be preserved in their naturally fresh state, by various methods of slow or
rapid freezing.

With freeze drying, the material to be dried is frozen and placed in a sealed chamber.
The chamber pressure is reduced and maintained at a value below 1 mm Hg. Heat is
applied to the material, the surface ice heats up and the resultant water vapour is
drawn off by the vacuum system. As the ice boundary recedes into the material, the
ice sublimes in situ and the water percolates to the surface through the pore structure
of the material.

Intermediate-moisture foods are foodstuffs that contain relatively large amounts of

water (5 to 30%) and yet do not support microbial growth. The technology, which is
difficult, is a spin-off from space travel. Open-shelf stability is achieved by suitable
control of acidity, redox potential, humectants and preservatives. Most developments
to date have been in foods for pet animals.
Whatever the preservation process, the food to be preserved has first to be prepared.
Meat preservation involves a butchery department; fish needs cleaning and gutting,
filleting, curing and so on. Before fruit and vegetables can be preserved they have to
be washed, cleaned, blanched, perhaps graded, peeled, stalked, shelled and stoned.
Many of the ingredients have to be chopped, sliced, minced or pressed.

Packaging

There are many methods of packaging food, including canning, aseptic packaging and
frozen packaging.

Canning

The conventional method of canning is based on the original work of Appert in

France, for which in 1810 the French government awarded him a prize of 12,000
francs. He preserved food in glass containers. In Dartford, England, in 1812, Donkin
and Hall set up the first cannery using tinned iron containers.

Today the world uses several million tonnes of tinplate annually for the canning
industry, and a substantial amount of preserved food is packed into glass jars. The
process of canning consists of taking cleaned food, raw or partly cooked but not
intentionally sterilized, and packing it into a can that is sealed with a lid. The can is
then heated, usually by steam under pressure, to a certain temperature for a period of
time to allow penetration of the heat to the centre of the can, destroying the microbial
life. The can is then cooled in air or chlorinated water, after which it is labelled and
packed.

Changes in processing have occurred over the years. Continuous sterilizers cause less
damage to cans by impact and allow cooling and drying in a closed atmosphere.
Foods can also be heat preserved in retortable pouches. These are bags of small cross-
sectional area made from laminates of aluminium and heat-sealable plastics. The
process is the same as for conventional canning, but better taste properties are claimed
for the products because sterilization times can be reduced. Very careful control of the
retorting process is essential to avoid damage to the heat seals with subsequent
bacterial spoilage.

Aseptic packaging

There have been recent developments in the aseptic packaging of food. The process is
fundamentally different from conventional canning. In the aseptic method the food
container and closure are sterilized separately, and the filling and closing are done in a
sterile atmosphere. Product quality is optimal because heat treatment of the foodstuff
can be controlled precisely and is independent of the size or material of the container.
Of concern is employee exposure to the sterilizing agents. It is likely that the method
will become more widely used because overall it should result in energy savings. To
date most progress has been made with liquids and purées sterilized by the so-called
HTST process, in which the product is heated to a high temperature for a few seconds.
Developments on particulate foodstuffs will follow. One likely benefit in food
factories will be the reduction of noise if rigid metallic containers are replaced. Such
containers may also cause problems by contaminating preserved food with lead and
tin. These are minimized by new-type two-piece containers drawn from lacquered
tinplate and three-piece containers with welded instead of soldered side seams.

Frozen packaging

The frozen food industry utilizes all methods of deep-freezing fresh food at
temperatures below their freezing point, thus forming ice crystals in the watery
tissues. The food may be frozen raw or partially cooked (e.g., animal carcasses or
made-up meat dishes, fish or fish products, vegetables, fruits, poultry, eggs, ready-
made meals, bread and cakes). Frozen perishable products can be transported over
long distances and stored for processing and/or sale when demand arises, and seasonal
products can be available at all times.

Food for freezing must be in prime condition and prepared under strict hygienic
control. Packaging materials should be vapour- and aroma-proof and resistant to low
temperatures. The quality of the product depends on the rate of freezing: if too slow,
the structure of the food may be damaged by large ice crystals and enzymatic and
microbiological properties destroyed. Small items, such as shrimps and peas, can be
frozen quickly, which makes for an improvement in quality.

The various methods of freezing include: air freezing, blast freezing, fluid-bed
freezing, fluid freezing, contact freezing, liqui-freezing and dehydro-freezing.

Air freezing in its simplest form involves placing food in trays on shelves in a cold
store at approximately –30 °C for a time varying from a few hours to 3 days,
depending on size. Blast freezing, a more complicated technique, uses a rapidly
circulating stream of cold air, sometimes combined with cold spirals, which removes
heat by means of radiation. Temperatures range between –40 and –50 °C, and the
maximum air speed is 5 m/s. Blast freezing may be carried out in tunnel freezers,
often equipped with conveyors to carry the food through to cold-storage rooms. When
the freezer is adjacent to the cold store, the tunnel is often closed with an air curtain
instead of doors.
Fluid-bed freezing is used for chopped or sliced vegetables, peas and so on, which are
placed on a perforated belt through which a stream of air is blown. Each item is
coated with ice and thus retains its shape and separateness. The frozen vegetables may
be stored in large containers and repackaged when needed in small units. In fluid
freezing (one of the oldest known methods) the food, usually fish, is immersed in a
strong solution of brine. Salt may penetrate unwrapped goods and even wrappings,
affecting the flavour and hastening rancidity. This method had declined in use but is
now gaining ground again as more effective plastic wrapping materials are developed.
Poultry is frozen by a combination of the fluid- and air-freezing methods. Each bird,
packed in polyethylene or similar material, is first sprayed or immersed in a fluid to
freeze its outer layer; the inside is afterwards frozen in a blast freezer.

Contact freezing is the common method for foodstuffs packed in cartons, which are
placed between hollow shelves through which a cooling fluid is circulated; the shelves
are pressed flat against the cartons, usually by hydraulic pressure.

In liqui-freezing, the product is placed on a conveyor belt which is passed through a

tank of liquid nitrogen (or occasionally liquid carbon dioxide) or through a tunnel
where liquid nitrogen is sprayed. Freezing occurs at a temperature as low as –196 °C,
and not every type of product or wrapping can withstand this cold. Dehydro-freezing,
which removes some of the water before freezing, is used for certain vegetables and
fruits. A considerable reduction of weight is achieved, involving lower transport,
storage and wrapping costs.

During cold storage, the product must be kept at a temperature of –25 to –30 °C, and
good air circulation must be maintained. Transport of frozen goods has to be in
refrigerated wagons, lorries, ships and so on, and during loading and unloading, the
goods must be exposed to as little heat as possible. Usually, firms producing frozen
food also prepare the raw material, but sometimes this treatment is carried out in
separate establishments. In beef and poultry operations, carbon dioxide is often used
to cool and preserve product during shipping.