Effect of processing on the quality of foods

In addition to preserving foods, secondary processing alters their eating quality. (See Glossary in Annex C). A good example is cereal grains, where primary processing by drying and milling produces flour, which remains inedible. Secondary processing is used to produce a wide range of bakery products, snack foods, beers and porridges, each having an attractive flavour, texture and/or colour. Eating quality is the main influence on whether customers buy a product. Foods that have an attractive appearance or colour are more likely to sell well and at a higher price. It is therefore in the interests of processing businesses to find out what it is that consumers like about a product using market assessments and ensure that the products meet their requirements. This is described below.

Scales of operation

When operating as a business, food processing can take place at any scale from a single person upwards (Table 2). The focus of this booklet is on the smaller scales of operation from "home-scale" to "small-scale".

Home-scale processing

Foods that are intended for household consumption are usually processed by individual families or small groups of people working together. Many of the world's multinational food conglomerates started from a single person or family working from home (Table 3). In developing countries, home-scale processors aim to generate extra income to meet family needs such as clothing or school fees. Where this is successful, many later expand production and develop first into a micro- or small-scale business (Case study 1), and later into larger scale operations.

Characteristically, home-scale processors cannot afford specialized food processing equipment and rely on domestic utensils, such as cooking pans and stoves for their production.

TABLE 1 Types of village food processing

TABLE 2 Scales of commercial food processing

Adapted from Trager, 1996

They may work part-time as the need for money arises and use part of the house, or an outbuilding for processing. However, in many situations the lack of dedicated production facilities means that there is a risk of contamination and product quality may be variable. This may reduce the value of the processed foods and the potential family income. A role of extension agents and training programmes is to upgrade facilities and hygiene, to introduce simple quality assurance techniques and improved packaging, to enable products to compete more effectively with those from larger processors.

Where families generate sufficient income from sales, some choose to invest in specialist equipment (such as a bakery oven, or a press for dewatering cassava or making cooking oil). In most cases, such equipment can be made by a competent local carpenter, bricklayer or blacksmith. This allows home-scale businesses to expand and become micro- or smallscale enterprises.

Micro-scale processing

Whereas home processors may sell their products to neighbours or in village marketplaces, the move up to micro-scale processing requires additional skills and confidence to compete with other processors and to negotiate with professional buyers, such as retailers or middlemen. Similarly, although the quality of their products may be suitable for rural consumers, it may not be sufficient to compete with products from larger companies in other markets. To successfully expand to micro-scale production, village processors need technical skills to make consistently high quality products, and financial and marketing skills to make the business grow and become successful. They may require assistance to gain these skills and confidence, and short training programmes or technical extension workers can help them to establish improved production methods, quality assurance and selling techniques.

Small-scale processing

The expansion to a small-scale processing operation requires additional investment to produce larger amounts of product in a dedicated production room. It is likely to require specialist equipment that is either made by a metal workshop in a nearby town or imported, because most rural blacksmiths do not have the necessary skills, equipment or materials to make such equipment. At this level of production, village processors are likely to be in competition with other small-scale businesses, larger companies and imported products. They need to develop attractive packaging, quality assurance techniques, and the financial and managerial skills needed to run a successful small business.

TABLE 3 Origins of some of the world's major food-processing companies

(Adapted from Trager 1996)

If the level of investment at this scale is too high for individual families, an alternative approach is for a group of people, such as a farmers' group, or a women's group, or a producer co-operative to operate the food processing business together (Case study 2). They invest jointly in the equipment and facilities, and market their products under a single brand name. There are many advantages to this approach including a greater willingness by lenders to make a loan if a group is sharing responsibility for the repayments, new employment opportunities for those without land, discouraging migration to larger towns or cities, and providing greater financial security and an improved standard of living to larger numbers of people.

FIGURE 1 Small-scale processing. (Photo by the author)

Many governments promote the development of small-scale food processing enterprises because they:

· have the potential to create significant levels of employment;

· increase food security for growing urban populations as well as rural families;

· produce products that can substitute for imported foods or have export potential, and thus help reduce balance of payments problems and improve the overall prosperity of the country.