Recent trends in snack foods suggest that more and more efforts are being made to change their current image and remove the “junk food” label from these products.

This means that companies involved in the snack food business are investing a lot of resources to identify good food product properties that consumers want, and at the same time search for new products or adapt their existing products to satisfy these needs for a better food value. During the last few years, many products with healthy claims such as low-fat, no fat, high fiber, low salt, no salt, toasted not fried, and multi-grain snacks have flooded the market. These products are intended to neutralize nutritional problems related to cardio-vascular diseases such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol level, as well as problems related to obesity. However, only a very few of these products have been successful or have been able to survive in the market. Some of the reasons for the failure of many of these “healthy” products are their lack of appeal in terms of taste and texture. It seems that most of the consumers cannot sacrifice their indulgence for these snack foods for the sake of health. Others, who are more aware of health problems or more health conscious, did not renounce snacking but only changed the food they consumed as snacks. These foods are biscuits, crackers, pretzels, sandwiches, nuts, fruit leather, and meat jerkys.

With the constant progress in information technology and shorter and shorter travel time that has made the world smaller, consumers have become more and more exposed and have started to appreciate

many ethnic foods that, even though they seem to be snack foods, are consumed as food. Some of these products are papadums, krupuk, Indian samosas, and various toasted crackers. Papadums are a very thin and crunchy .at bread-like food. They originate in India and are made from mixed lentils, spices and pepper, and have a very high protein content that would make them very good for the Atkins low carbohydrate diet. They can be consumed during meals or as snacks – a healthy snack considering the high protein content. The process of making them is very labour-intensive.

However, many are transforming their manual operations to mechanized food processing using highly efficient kneading and sheeting systems as well as continuous cutting, drying, and frying.

With the success of the Atkins diet, many foods, including snack foods, are processed using very low carbohydrate containing raw materials.

Amongst these materials are soy protein isolates and soy protein concentrates.

Another ethnic food that has caught the eye of snack food manufacturers is “krupuk” or “kroepeck”. These products have been and still are very popular among Asians all over the world, particularly in the south and southeast Asia. They are consumed as an appetizer, side dish and as snack food. Krupuk has already been in existence in Asian countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and China for many decades. They are also known as shrimp or fish crackers.

These products are made primarily from the starch or .our of a root crop known as tapioca (manioca or cassava) and either fish or shrimp paste or powder. In Malaysia, the protein content coming from fish must not be less than 20% by law. The process for these products is still predominantly manual and in batch operations.

It starts with the blending of the main ingredients, making a soft dough through a kneader. The dough is then cut into dimensions of length similar to that of a loaf of bread. This cut dough is then steamed using rudimentary steamers at atmospheric pressure. The steamed product is then allowed to cool and age for as long as 12 hours to set (retrograde) the starch components that will make the structure more rigid and less sticky to be able to be cut.

They are then cut into thin slices of about 1 mm thick. These thin slices are then spread into trays and are either dried under the sun or in rudimentarily-made batch driers.

As both a machinery and a technology supplier, at Pavan we are constantly aware of the changes happening in this market sector. For this reason we constantly adapt the machines that we build to the technological requirements for making determinate products. From our deep knowledge of different unit operations such as extrusion-cooking, forming, sheeting, drying and frying, studies have been made on the technology and on the market potential of these evolving new products. One of the primary objectives is the continuity of the process and increase in automation, as well as reduction or optimisation of the total processing time.

Variations in taste and formulations utilizing the technique of adding visible inclusions to the product have also been applied. The inclusions of highly-visible materials like bits and pieces of dried vegetables, bean sprouts in the minestrone crackers or shredded coconut, sesame seeds, various spices and precooked particulate materials have been successfully tested, since these material remained highly visible in pellets as well as in the fried products. From the traditional extrusion-cooking, the process has been transformed into cooking and extrusion.

This processing utilizes more thermal energy rather than mechanical energy dissipation. This allows better cooking without excessive starch damage, as well as less nutrient loss on the products. It also allows the maintenance of the visibility of these particulate materials.

Moreover, the use of prolonged hydro-thermal treatment guarantees full .avour and colour development during cooking, while having less starch damage a much better crunchiness of the product is obtained, and less susceptibility towards moisture absorption leading to loss of crunchiness and increased sogginess. This will make the consumers feel that food rather than junk is being consumed.

Other means that can satisfy the quest for food value in the snack food sector are through the possibility of their consumption together with a variety of sauces. In Mexico, snack food known as “chicharon” – which is a large .at rectangular pellet that when fried gives a product as big as a piece of paper is consumed, putting meat sauce on top of it. The same is true with the consumption of tacos and tortillas. Products that will produce a scoop-like form when pellets are fried, are currently being developed using the same technology mentioned before. These products can be used in dipping these snacks in a variety of sauces that will enhance both the taste and the food value of the product. Again, a much better food value.

By Luisito Virtucio - New Product Develop. Manager - R&D Center - Pavan Spa