Frontline Food Consultants and Engineers deals with the complete consultancy of Makhana’s production process right from crispy outside texture to rich Makhana flavor and nutrients. Our recipe formulation, development and process optimization services help you manufacture traditional and new types of fox nuts products with the right texture and taste. Our main target is to control its roasting in the makhana processing in order to achieve that wonderful crisp but lose nothing of the nutritional worth of these culinary marvels, which are simply bursting with health benefits.
As top Makhana consultants, we assist with Ingredient Sourcing and Quality Control, third-party manufacturing, and plant and machinery setup. We also help you to steer you towards the best makhana and other spices or flavoring for the dish. You will also be able to be assisted by our R & D to develop different flavors in makhana for the growing market of healthy snacks like spicy, salted, and even makhana with herbs. We also provide Regulatory Compliance Consulting which makes your roasted makhana be in compliance with the food laws and the right labeling. Packaging Solutions maintains product quality, cold airlocks, and moistureless entry while providing cheaper and environment-friendly packaging systems for extending the shelf life.
What is Roasted Makhana?
Makhana Fox Nuts or Lotus Seeds is a munchkin that is very traditional for Indian exposure and neatly packs nutrition all over with crispy munchkin. Makhana is derived from seeds of lotus plant which is baked and flavored to make different flavored snacks. A snack that is low on carbohydrates and is gluten-free and has all nutrients, protein, and antioxidants and has less calories, and has been accepted by health-conscious people due to its testing tastes.
The roasting process of makhana is used when preparing roasted makhana requires roasted machinery such as roasters to roast the makhana to a certain temperature in order to provide a standard texture and taste. The seasoning machines are used to sprinkle spices, herbs or other enhancers uniformly on the roasted makhana. Air cooling conveyors are used for cooling the makhana through air and packing systematically. Measures are employed to divide the makhana and weighing devices ensure that quantities are precise when packing as well as when sealing the makhana packed in small airtight packets or bags as these extend its shelf life while preventing spoilt. Flavors control, roasting time control and the other measures put in place are the organizational controls that ensure the roasted makhana accustoms to certain measures.
Processing of Packed and Processed Makhana
- Plain Roasted Makhana: Baked solely for a snack, without adding scent, this healthy food truly tastes like roasted one and their texture is similar to makhana.
- Salted Makhana: It is actually light salty and can then be consumed when consumed raw with no processing.
- Spicy Masala Makhana: An original, as genuine Indian spices; chili powder, cumin, and turmeric, meaning that they contain a spicy note.
- Caramelized Makhana: Sweetened makhana- the goodness of nutritive makhana is sweetened with sugar or jaggery instead of refined sugar making it a healthier option to the normal sweet chaat.
- Cheese-Flavored Makhana: This is soaked in cheese powder to provide one, two, or three whole tons of tangy cheese flavor.
Technical processes for packing and processing Makhana
- Raw Makhana Preparation
- Sorting and Cleaning: These are followed by raw makhana seeds which are harvested at first and subjected to an elementary process of sorting out either with the help of mechanical methods or through manual intervention in order to get rid of the foreign substance or bad seeds if any. After that, they are washed in order to get rid of any dirt or any other material which is unwanted before they go through another process of sorting.
- Popping: Makhana seeds can even be hand- or machine popcorn whereby they’re heat treated in pans or commercial poppers. This makes the seeds to burst through this tedious process of germination The seeds thus find themselves to be light-filled with lots of space.
- Roasting
- Dry Roasting: Popped makhana is then to roasted in industrial roasters at a temperature that is set at approximately 150- 160 degrees Celsius to make it crispy. Roasting also makes the shelf life longer since it gets rid of moisture on the food item. One has to be very careful with the time it takes to roast the meat since over-roasting or burning of the meat brings about some undesirable changes in the products.
- Oil Roasting (Optional): As for the flavored makhana there can be oil added to it and this is done when roasting light to get better spices.
- Seasoning and Flavoring
- Spice Coating: After roasting the makhana it is spread out on seasoning machines and a spice mix is poured on it and is sieved again. Spy spices include chili powders, cumin powder, turmeric, salt, and cheese powder. Coming to caramelized makhana, half the quantity of the above mixture is spread on the food same as jaggery or caramelized syrup.
- Flavor Uniformity: Seasoning tumblers on their own ensure that spices or sweet coatings will spread by themselves in equal measures implying that all the makhana pieces will be flavored evenly. Flavoring is useful in maintaining taste in every portion throughout a product that is prepared in large batches.
- Cooling and Packaging
- Cooling Systems: In the roasting and seasoning phase makhana is again cooled through cooling tunnels or conveyors so that the temperature comes to normal range. Proper cooling makes it easier not to make the makhana wet or soft in texture because moisture cannot be allowed to settle on them.
- Packaging: Makhana follows the packaging process put into air-tight and moisture-proof packing machines and packed in special Pouches or Containers. MAP or nitrogen flushing referred to as gaseous packaging refers to packaging that alters the gas in the packaging material thereby extending the shelf life of the product.
Packaging of Makhana
- Vacuum-Sealed Packaging
- Objective: Maintain freshness and avoid water penetration in any form.
- Materials: Plastic films of multilayer structures containing features of moisture and oxygen barrier characteristics.
- Benefits: The use of vacuum packaging helps maintain the crisps of the makhana since the product gets largely exposed to air which makes it stale.
- Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP)
- From all the packaging techniques that are being used today, we will learn about Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP).
- Objective: To increase shelf-life, and retain the inherent natural crispy texture of the makhana.
- Materials: Special high barrier type of plastic films that uses a nitrogen gas to replace the oxygen.
- Benefits: MAP also coordinates toward retaining the delicious taste and the gluten of the food by retarding chances of oxidation and moisture intake. This method is most effective for preserving both basic and various spiced and flavored makhana products.
- Packing Products with Environment Sensitivity
- Objective: Offer eco-friendly packaging solutions that also are cost-effective.
- Materials: Fully reusable and recyclable plastic films, biodegradable paper-based pouches, or completely biodegradable packaging materials.
- Benefits: Such green packaging benefits the client with environmental consciousness as well as maintaining the products’ freshness and crispness.