Food Waste Reduction in the Factory

3. 0Food Waste Reduction in the Factory It is obvious that dealing with food waste reduction in factory is simply just reducing the creation of food production in factory. Of course, this is some kind of irrelevant ways to prevent the production of food waste in industry without using any of an smart engineering method to actually reduce it without reducing the creation of food production in factory. At the same time, the profits that the factory made would not have occurs any reduction if an applicable food waste reduction techniques is applied.

Thus, sources and products can be saved from waste which concurrently will also save from the consumption of time, money and workload in the factory (Creedon, 2010). Therefore, a necessary food technology engineering method should be applied to the reduction of food waste in factory. First of all, before the factory actually thinking of reduces the food waste of the food created in the factory, they should first know and to determine the characteristics of every particular biscuits produced in Khong Guan.

After the characteristics of every particular biscuits has been determined, then they need to monitored either hand-operated or non-hand-operated machine to detect the most acceptable range for the characteristic of every type of biscuits. The most vital characteristic of the biscuit that they should have been concerned on is the moisture content. The moisture content plays an important roles since its ensures that biscuits are generally free from microbiological spoilage and have a long shelf life if they are protected from absorbing moisture from damp surroundings or atmosphere.

Biscuits have relatively high energy density compared with other baked goods. The biscuit produced in Khong Guan has a moisture content of about 1 to 5%, if it exceeded than that, it can be considered spoiled and be thrown away as food waste (Baked info). Technically, we cannot produce a good and perfect quality of the biscuit constantly in a day without have any unwanted or abnormal biscuit produced throughout the process. An abnormal biscuit is biscuit that is produced from the factory that did not meet the ranges and requirements of the quality or characteristic of the biscuit production.

Hence, it is also called as unwanted since they do not want to have any irregular features of the biscuit production for the community. In this case, they use the most common engineering way of reducing the food waste by opt to recycle in order to waste, money and time in the factory. Another technique they use to recycle the food waste is by using the excess/extra dough after the molding has press on the dough sheet to make the rectangle shape of the biscuit and the extra one they recycled back to mix it with the fresh dough again.

This procedures repeat itself on every dough has made after the molding process in order to get the used flour and reuse it for the fresh one. This way is not only save the food waste created from the process, but also save more cost on buying more flour for the fresh dough production (Answer TM, 2009). The other common cases happened such as, the over flour created, abnormal shape of the biscuit, extra moisture content of the biscuit or the cream as we have mentioned before at above, and etc.

All of these matters they have put in more awareness so that the biscuit production produce more constantly good products by using recycling method. Since recycling is apparently the easiest way to reduce the food waste produced in factory (Brokerage, 2012). Thus an engineering thought has been made that, since they cannot produce a 100% good quality of biscuit constantly throughout the biscuit process production, but they are able to actually reduce the food waste creation by opt to recycle the unwanted or abnormal biscuit to repeat the same process to obtain a better quality of the biscuit products.

There are other methods they use to reduce the food waste in factory which they use the cold chain and packaging method where they store the food into the so called refrigerator to ensure the characteristic of biscuit requirements are maintained in ranges. The transportation of temperature sensitive biscuits sometimes requires an in-depth knowledge of the cold chain: a poorly controlled step can result in the loss of a biscuit or a biscuit that becomes toxic.

Moreover, lack of knowledge about the cold chain or about the rules applicable to the use of packaging can result in lost biscuits. Thus, this method is able to cut food waste and create good security of the biscuit. Other than that, the methods of reducing the food waste of biscuit in factory also affected by the workers themselves in the factory. Of course, people nowadays in a modern era started using more advanced technologies to produce products in any factory. Otherness in Khong Guan, most of the process was operated by human’s hand to produce some particular types of biscuits.

Hence, this is an important procedure that needs to be operated thoroughly in order to avoid human’s error. Otherwise, the characteristic of the biscuit produced does not meet its requirement and this will cause a major destruction of the biscuit products that will eventually lead to food waste. The other method such as improving a quality control and process monitoring rigorously of the biscuit also can be made in Khong Guan factory. Steps can be taken to ensure that the number of reject batches is kept to a minimum.

This is achieved by increasing the frequency of inspection and the number of points of inspection. For example, install particular automated continuous monitoring equipment can help to identify production problems at an early stage. This step can reduce the product waste at early stage and avoids any complication before the process moves to the mid-stage of process. Another common methods can be used in any food processing factory is to obtain a good designs of a silo as the raw material storage. Why this is important?

Well, as we already covered an essential part of particle technology that so much related to the food technology, we need to find what is the best condition to design a silo that used to store raw material before it proceeds to the processing part. Otherwise, like I said, the design of the silo is not at the specific range in terms of angle of repose or the sizes, it will create an arc shape which blocked the material to flow through. Eventually, the hopper storage will get clogged and lead to food or material waste.

Hence a better design of the silo/hopper for any particular raw material needs to be aware as well. References “Waste minimisation. ” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 13 April. 2013. <http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Waste_minimisation> “Angle of repose. ” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 13 April. 2013. <http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Angle_of_repose> Answer TM. (2009). Retrieved April 12, 2013, from What is the moisture content of biscuits? : http://wiki. answers. om/Q/What_is_the_moisture_content_of_biscuits Biscuits. (n. d. ). Retrieved April 13, 2013, from Bake Info: http://www. bakeinfo. co. nz/Facts/Biscuit-making Brokerage. (2012). Why Recycle Food Waste? Retrieved from ECO Food REcycling LTD: http://www. ecofoodrecycling. co. uk/services-products/why-recycle-food-waste/ Creedon, M. (2010, July 15). Less Food Waste More Profit. Retrieved April 13, 2013, from http://www. carlow. ie/SiteCollectionDocuments/All%20Services/Environment/Business%20Waste/less-food-waste-and-more-profit. pdf