Frontline Food Consultants and Engineers is dedicated to offering consultancy solutions right from the concept of Ready to Eat (RTE) Snacks Production Facility. We advise clients on Site Selection and Analysis helping to recommend the right places and provide Licensing and Permitting Assistance to help meet the food safety standards.

In Snack Equipment Finalization and Procurement we as a Ready to eat Consultant assist in the decision making process in regard to the machinery used in the snack making process and in Architectural and Structural Planning. Our specialization incorporates Process and Mechanical. We handle Operations effectively aside from Installation and Commissioning of Equipment. We also plan Utility systems: water, steam, electricity, HVAC & Refrigeration systems for the right production conditions and Food Safety & Sanitation Programs for compliance and quality.

What are RTE Snacks?

Ready to eat (RTE) snacks are, ready to eat food products prepared food products that can be eaten right from their packs, without any further cooking required. The preparation process of RTE snacks starts by identifying the right ingredients for the production of snacks for instance grains, nuts, fruits, or vegetables. The ingredients are subjected to certain processing like baking, frying or dehydrating to give the required textural as well as organoleptic properties. For instance, potato chips are cut and deep-fried while Fruit snacks are naturally dried, or dehydrated to retain the natural taste. After that the snacks are flavored and seasoned appropriately for the specific consumer market. This could easily be a savory aroma of cheese, barbeque or hot chili up to sweet aromas like honey, dark chocolate or cinnamon. There are a number of factors that need to be controlled in the seasoning process including the tendency for the seasoning to stick only to some parts of the snack to different ways it affects the texture and water activity.

After seasoning, the RTE snacks (or ready to eat foods) are packed using moisture-proof, hermetically sealed packing material to avoid contamination. Measures such as nitrogen displacement may be applied in order to prevent the oxidation of the product, which leads to spoiling of the product. Revealing and appropriate packing is crucial to counter the fatigued taste of snacks within the entire life cycle of the product. Partially or fully sealed snacks, resealable bags, or options like ‘singles’, ‘twos’, ‘fours’ and more are common in RTE snack market because of convenience.

Types of Ready-to-Eat Snacks

RTE snacks can broadly cover foods of many categories. In the subsection below, we discuss some of them in detail focussing on the manufacturing process involved From the technological process, it is clear that the major types of foam are as follows;

Chips and Crisps

Varieties:

  • Potato Chips: Streaks of potato that is cooked and crispily fried or baked. Comes in flavoring such as salted, sour cream and onion, barbeque and cheese.
  • Tortilla Chips: Composed of corn tortilla that has been parted into small pieces and fried or baked. They should be consumed together with salsa, guacamole or with some beans or any other dip.
  • Vegetable Chips: It is comprised of foods such as sweet potatoes, beets, and carrots. These are healthier versions of normal potato chips on the market today.

Technical Processes:

  • Slicing: To gain thickness uniformities it employs precision slicers that normally range from 1.2mm to 2.00mm thickness, which has a major bearing in the texture as well as frying characteristics.
  • Blanching: Slices are parboiled in hot water or steam at 70-90°C for 2-5 minutes to reduce surface starch content and fast food frying time.
  • Frying/Baking: Deep frying at high temperature of 160-180°C for 1.5 – 3 minutes or baking at 180-200°C for 10- 15 minutes to quickly remove the moisture content which gives a crispy end product. Frying oil quality and frying oil temperature are critically significant for the non-formation of acrylamide.
  • Flavoring: Spray or tumbler systems to apply flavoring agents on the fried/baked chips uniformly The flavoring agents will be sprayed on, with a view of coating the chips uniformly, using the spray or tumbler systems. It may be done by electrostatic powdering or liquid writing which often use oil based vehicles.
  • Packaging: Nitrogen flushing this helps in replacing oxygen in the food and thus increases it shelf life through out the process of preventing oxidation. This is done immediately the chips are cooled to room temperature In order to analyze the data effectively, the variables are usually categorized based on their attributes.

Nuts and Seeds

Varieties:

  • Almonds: Buy it roasted, salted or flavored. Popular with their high protein and healthy fat content.
  • Cashews: Smooth-bodied, full flavored, and frequently roasted, salted or with spices added.
  • Pumpkin Seeds: Contains proteins, magnesium and zinc which are great for the body system.

Technical Processes:

  • Roasting: Situated in continuous belt roasters or batch ovens at 240-320°F for 15-30 min with the feeder mill and impeller rotor temperature set to reach the preferred taste and texture.
  • Salting/Flavoring: Different food items need standardized application of salt or spices mainly by the tumblers or coating machines. Sometimes, chemicals that help the liquids to adhere well to the tissue are added such as oil or syrups.
  • Drying: Achieves moisture to below 5% to reduce the spoilage time and eliminate microbial activity.
  • Packaging: Use of vacuum system or Modified Atmospheric Packaging (MAP) to avoid time degradation and oxidation. The composition of the plasma includes low oxygen concentration level which is sometimes taken to below 1%.

Snack Bars

Varieties:

  • Granola Bars: An energy bar that is made from oats, nuts, and dried fruits with honey or syrup added to the base.
  • Protein Bars: High-protein snacks incorporated with whey, soy or plant-based proteins are common. Most appropriate to be used after exercise.
  • Energy Bars: antioxidant snack bar; intended for a fix of energy suddenly and can contain dates, nuts, seeds, etc.

Technical Processes:

  • Mixing: Uniform distribution of various components through high-shear mixers for blending dry and wet parts of feed.
  • Forming: Application of extrusion or molding tools to set the shape of bars as well as their dimensions of standard size and weight. Extrusion is normally carried out at a temperature of between 50-60°C.
  • Baking/Cooking: Criticizes it in that it doesn’t state how the moisture must be eliminated, while at the same time preserving the texture and binding agents of food ingredients. Cooking is carried out at a temperature of 150 to 180 ° C for 10-20 minutes.
  • Cooling: Quenching to give the structure and to preserve it from microbial activities. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to cool down the tunnels to a level that it cannot go higher than 30 degrees Celsius.
  • Packaging: Most pre-shredded packaging materials are individually wrapped to promote sanitation and to enhance their shelf life; in many occasions, high-barrier materials are used to reduce the infiltration of moisture. They are sealed at a temperature of 100– 150°C.

Crackers and Biscuits

Varieties:

  • Whole Grain Crackers: Whole grain usually derived from wheat or rye commonly contain seeds on top.
  • Rice Crackers: Crispy, translucent, wheat flour based and usually prepared with rice flour; it can be seasoned with soy sauce or seaweed.
  • Biscuits: Whether it is sweet or savoury biscuits can be taken any time of the day with tea or coffee.

Technical Processes:

  • Dough Preparation: Kneading the dough using hand, with a controlled quantity of water to make it in the desired way by the purpose so that it may have different texture.
  • Sheeting and Cutting: After this, dough is stretched and thinned to the standard range of 1mm to 3mm thick, then is cut with the help of rotary knives to required shapes.
  • Baking: Directed by the level of moisture (2-5%) and Maillard browning, baking them at 180-220°C for 10-20 minutes inside tunnel ovens.
  • Post-Baking Treatment: For some varieties, this includes flavor applied or enrobing (chocolate coating) at 30-35 °C.
  • Post-Baking Treatment: In some cases, this involves flavouring application or enrobing, or coating with chocolate at temperatures between 30-35°C.
  • Packaging: Wrapped in moisture proof packagings to keep them crisp and to avoid spoiling by getting too sticky. This can include multilayer films with high barrier to the transmission of gases and moisture.

Dried Fruit

Varieties:

  • Raisins: Small, shriveled fruits that are normally sweet and fibrous in texture.
  • Apricots: Sweet to tart, usually dehydrated, occasionally sprayed with sulfur dioxide for retention of color.
  • Cranberries: Sour and in some cases sweet, can be candied and consumed in trail mixes or baked goods.

Technical Processes:

  • Cleaning: Water washes aimed to wash off the surface debris off the surface with water sprays and brushes.
  • Pretreatment: Sometimes comes with immersion in ascorbic acid or sulfur dioxide (1000 – 2000 ppm) to maintain color and inhibit microbial activity.
  • Drying: Conventional drying methods like sun drying or mechanical using tray or tunnel dryers at a temperature of between 50-70°C to make moisture content to 15-20%. Drying time varies between eight and twenty-four hours depending on the fruit and technique employed.
  • Sorting and Grading: Uniformity in size as well as in quality is maintained through the use of mechanical sorters.
  • Packaging: Applications of moisture barrier materials to avoid moisture and contamination. It is normally done in hermetically sealed bags or pouches.

Popcorn

Varieties:

  • Butter Popcorn: Most traditional popcorn with a buttery taste that is usually associated with movies.
  • Cheese Popcorn: Covers with cheese powder giving it a nice taste.
  • Kettle Corn: Sweet and salty, kettle corn is best known as a snack experienced at a fair.

Technical Processes:

  • Popping: The poppers to be used are hot air ones at temperatures of 180- 200°C or oil poppers, which are at 160- 180°C for uniform expansion and texture. Popping time takes 2-4minutes.
  • Flavoring: Applying of the coatings after the tumbler treatment, namely butter, and cheese powder. Flavors can be sprayed on the popcorn and they come in the category of oil-based or powdered.
  • Cooling: Flash cooling to intensify the extracts or product flavors and to achieve the right texture. The temperature of cooling tunnels is maintained below 30 c within ten to fifteen minutes.
  • Packaging: Kept in moisture-proof packs to retain texture and flavor for a longer period of time. Inflation with nitrogen is done to remove oxygen and thereby control staling.