Bakery Industry- Processing & Hazards

1. Bakery Industry Indian Scenario

The bakery segment of food industry in India has stretched itself in terms of business growth and its ameliorating quality and acceptability. Bakery industry is one of the oldest and traditional activities in India. India is the world’s second largest producer of food next to China and has the potential of being the biggest with its food and agricultural sector. Indian bakery industry is one of the biggest sections in the country’s processed food industry.

Bakery products such as bread and biscuits account for over 82 percent of the total bakery products produced in the country. Bakery sector in India is classified into 3 different categories which are bread, biscuits, and cake. Over-all 1.3 million ton of bakery products are produced in India, rest are produced by unorganized sectors and by small scale food manufacturers. There are many automatic and semiautomatic bread and biscuit manufacturing unit in India, but people prefer fresh bread from local manufacturer. The rising demand of natural nutrient, organic product and healthy living has significantly become a new trend the consumer demand on whole wheat, light, natural and additive free products. In recent year, the growth in scale of packaged whole wheat, gluten free and natural product is an especially important indication of this new and healthy lifestyle.

The involvement of big entrepreneur house in the bakery chain has further caused tremendous growth in this sector. The chief players in industry like Britannia and Parle account for around 40% of the total business share of entire quantity of branded biscuits available in India. It is expected that bake product will maintain the growth by constant value at a compounded annual growth rate of almost 2% over the upcoming year.

2. Processing of Bread

Most popular and traditional bakery product is bread processing and manufacturing involve lot of steps for making freshly prepared quality bread.  Processing of bread include-

• Weighing – Bread manufacturing starts from mixing various ingredients. Though the variants and its composition changes recipe wise but if followed a standard procedure, following items are used.

Sl. No.	Ingredient	Approximate Composition (in %)
1	Wheat Flour	32-45
2	Water	50-64
3	Yeast	2
4	Salt	2
5	Fat	–
6	Emulsifier	–
7	Sugar	–

 

Multi grain or any other ingredient can be mixed along with standard ingredients as per the requirement.

• Mixing- All dry and wet ingredient are thoroughly mixed with salt being added at last. Reason being salt can deactivate the yeast.
• Kneading- Kneading of dough provide efficient mixing of all dry and wet ingredient along with formation of gluten network and creating air bubbles pockets for carbon dioxide. Due to moisture, dough become elastic and hence it is kneaded to regain its toughness.
• Primary Proofing- It is a leaving process where the dough is maintained at 27 Deg. C which is to provide yeast cells to proliferate and produce carbon dioxide. Proofing results in increasing the size of dough to approximately double the size.
• Rising/Folding- Folding ensures each dough to be of same shape and evenly distributed gas bubbles. This gives dough a smoothen finish and remove the extra stickiness form dough. The folding process is done in folding pans after dividing the dough of equal weighment.
• Shaping- The dough is shaped in long roll by rolling it on slab. The long roll is then fitted in to the tin. This process divides the larges pocket of formed air bubbles into smaller pockets making an evenly distributed structure.
• Final Proofing- For approximately 1 hour the dough is again provided the favorable condition for growth of yeast. Dough is maintained at 85% Rh and 34 Deg. C. From here the dough gets sufficiently risen.
• Baking- During baking of dough steam is injected in the oven and temperature eventually reaches to 200-260 Deg. C. Chances of outer crust toughening at such high temperature is reduced by the condensate formed inside the oven. Browning effect in the bread can be observed due to the reaction of sugar and carbohydrate of product in such high temperature. The heat travels from the surrounding air into the interior of the dough or batter while moisture and other liquids compounds escape from the core towards the exterior of surrounding air due to evaporation. While both yeast and chemical leavened can result in gas development and volume built-up, yeast is important for development of unique flavors in breads and some baked goods.
• Spraying- To make the bread crust shine, loaves when unloaded from oven are sprayed with water.
• Cooling- Temperature of baked loaves need to be bring down immediately to below 30 Deg. C for better quality and microbiologically safe product. For this purpose, filtered air is used to cool down the loaves.
• Packing- Packing can be done either after cutting the loaves in slices or as such. Hot filling is avoided to prevent any type of microbial issue in the finished product.

3. Hazards in Bakery Industry

High risk is involved in bakery product as manufacturing consist working with lot of water, temperature, moisture- all of which are favorable condition for unwanted microbial growth.  Key to contamination free processing area is hygienic processing area with hygienic designed equipment’s that do not allow any sort of stagnation of product or water and is easily cleanable.

As humid air is used during baking, if moisture is not removed quickly form product there are chances of condensation settling inside the ventilation unit which shall be responsible for fungal growth in equipment and leading to microbial contamination in product.    

Food hazards are the biggest threat to food safety. A hazard being a biological, chemical, or physical agent in a food, or condition of a food, with the potential to cause an adverse health effect. Food adulteration are not only the intentional addition or substitution or abstraction of substances which adversely affect the nature, substances and quality of foods, but also their incidental contamination during the period of growth, harvesting, storage of raw material,  processing, transport and distribution.

To control hazards in food industry there are HACCAP plans which are introduced in every industry. Not a single plant and company can be set up without HACAP.                                   

It can be concluded that the world of bakery industry in India has endless scope for growth and development. This will prove beneficial to both the consumer and manufacturers. Consumers will have extraordinary bakery variant products and manufactures will have bigger getting market. With certainty, bakery industry in India will overcome all the challenges and threats and will flourish with gigantic growth all across the globe.