I.

Food Processing
Food processing is the transformation of raw ingredients into food, or of food
into other forms. Food processing typically takes clean, harvested crops
or butchered animal products and uses these to produce attractive, marketable and
often long shelf-life food products. Similar processes are used to produce animal
feed.
Food processing dates back to the prehistoric ages when crude processing
incorporated slaughtering, fermenting, sun drying, preserving with salt, and various
types of cooking (such as roasting, smoking, steaming, and oven baking). Saltpreservation was especially common for foods that constituted warrior and sailors'
diets until the introduction of canning methods. Evidence for the existence of these
methods
can
be
found
in
the
writings
of
the
ancient Greek, Chaldean, Egyptian and Roman civilizations as well as archaeological
evidence from Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are
processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a typical shelf life
ranging from one to five years, although under specific circumstances a freeze-dried
canned product, such as canned, dried lentils, can last as long as 30 years in an
edible state. Popular products of this method are canned sardines.
To prevent the food from being spoiled before and during containment, a
number of methods are used: pasteurisation, boiling (and other applications of high
temperature over a period of time), refrigeration, freezing, drying, vacuum
treatment, antimicrobial agents that are natural to the recipe of the foods being
preserved, a sufficient dose of ionizing radiation, submersion in a strong saline
solution, acid, base, osmotically extreme (for example very sugary) or other
microbially-challenging environments. Other than sterilization, no method is
perfectly
dependable
as
a
preservative.
For
example,
the
microorganism Clostridium botulinum (which causes botulism), can only be
eliminated at temperatures above the boiling point.
From a public safety point of view, foods with low acidity (a pH more than 4.6)
need sterilization under high temperature (116-130 C). To achieve temperatures
above the boiling point requires the use of a pressure canner. Foods that must be
pressure
canned
include
most vegetables, meat,
seafood, poultry,
and dairy products. The only foods that may be safely canned in an ordinary boiling
water
bath
are
highly acidic ones
with
a
pH
below
4.6,
such
as fruits, pickled vegetables, or other foods to which acidic additives have been
added.
Such preservation techniques are needed to prevent fish spoilage and
lengthen shelf life. They are designed to inhibit the activity of spoilage bacteria and
the metabolic changes that result in the loss of fish quality. Spoilage bacteria are
the specific bacteria that produce the unpleasant odors and flavors associated with
spoiled fish.

The sardines enter the cannery on ice, in a refrigerator or pre-frozen at sea.

Inspectors examine and evaluate the fish while they're unloaded. The inspectors
monitor the condition of each sardine, check the temperature and collect samples
for chemical analysis. Unacceptable fish do not make it to the next step. Also, frozen
sardines are thawed under controlled conditions.
Grading machines are used to sort sardine and sardine-like fish into regular
sizes. Machines are available which, in a single pass, segregate the fish into four
different grades, with thicknesses ranging from between 5 mm and 33 mm. The fish
pass, tail first, down inclined oscillating tracks which are separated by gradually
widening gaps. When the gap between the tracks becomes greater than the
thickness of the body, the fish fall through to belts below, from where they are
segregated into storage bins or passed onto conveyors for further processing. The
machines are fitted with water sprays which simultaneously wash the fish as they
pass down the tracks.
Machines receive the sardines and mechanically remove their heads, entrails
and remaining waste portions. There is a range of nobbing machines available for
the removal of heads, tails and viscera of sardines and sardine-like fish; and there
are also machines which automatically pack the nobbed fish into cans. Fish may be
fed to the nobbing machines manually, by between three and five operators;
however, there are also machines in which one supervisor can manage an
automatic feeding operation. The prepared sardines head for a conveyor belt of
rushing water while the cans are sanitized and sent to filling tables in front of the
now thoroughly washed fish. At this point, workers count out the correct number of
sardines per can and fill them by hand. The filled cans return to a conveyor and land
in an "exhaust box" that steam-cooks them and removes excess liquid.
Some sardines are immediately smoked and others have ingredients added,
as their packing style indicates. Additional machines apply lids, codes, identification
labels and seals. In the final, pressure-cooking stage, thermal processing ensures
sterile product safety, and inspectors sample and evaluate the sardines for their last
labeling before being shipped to stores.
Sardines are cooked and dried in flash cookers in open cans which are
automatically transported through continuous machines. There are at least two
systems available; however, in each system the mode of operation is similar. Filled
cans are automatically fed into a steam heating section where the sardines are
cooked. For machines in which pre-cooking takes place while the cans are in the
upright position, the filled containers are inverted to allow draining; however, when
cans are inverted during pre-cooking, draining is continuous. At the completion of
draining the sardines are dried, and the cans then proceed to the automatic
discharge unit.
II. Beverage Processing
Beverage processing is the production of various drinks and beverages for
human consumption. A well-known example is the milk. Milk is a nutritious liquid
that is secreted by mammals and used to feed their young, and as food by human

beings. As an example, farmers keep herds of dairy cows, sheep, and goats for the
purpose of collecting milk.
Milk usually comes from the udders of dairy cows on the farm. Milking lines
are attached to the four teats of a dairy cow using suction cups. These lines are
attached to milking machines which use pumps to gently suck milk from the cow.
The milk travels through the milking lines to stainless steel pipes. The pipes
lead to refrigerated storage tanks (vats) which quickly cool the milk down to 4
degrees Celsius.
Before transferring the milk from the vats to their tankers, drivers first test
the milk for freshness and quality. Milk tanker drivers are accredited milk graders,
qualified to evaluate the milk prior to collection. Tanker drivers grade and if
necessary reject milk based on temperature, sight, and smell. A representative
sample is collected from each farm pickup prior to being pumped onto the tanker.
The trucks have large stainless steel refrigerated tanks, which keep the milk clean
and cold during transportation.
Tanker drivers deliver the milk to the nearest milk processing plant. On
arrival, milk from the tanker is tested again in a laboratory to ensure that it has
been kept at or below 4 degrees Celsius during transport, and delivered within 24
hours of milking. Samples from the bulk milk tanker are tested for antibiotics and
temperature before the milk enters the factory processing area. Farm milk samples
are tested for milkfat, protein, bulk milk cell count and bacteria count. If milk does
not meet quality standards it is rejected. The milk is then pumped into large
insulated vats at the factory.
The milk is gently heated and then cooled again to make sure that the milk is
germ-free. This process is called pasteurization. Pasteurization or pasteurisation is a
process of heating a food, which is usually a liquid, to a specific temperature for a
predefined length of time and then immediately cooling it after it is removed from
the heat. This process slows spoilage caused by microbial growth in the food.
Unlike sterilization, pasteurization is not intended to kill all micro-organisms in the food.
Instead, it aims to reduce the number of viable pathogens so they are unlikely to
cause disease (assuming the pasteurized product is stored as indicated and is
consumed before its expiration date). Commercial-scale sterilization of food is not
common because it adversely affects the taste and quality of the product. Certain
foods, such as dairy products, may be superheated to ensure pathogenic microbes
are destroyed.
The milk is then pushed through tiny holes (atomizer) so that the fat is
dispersed evenly throughout the milk, stopping the fat from floating to the top of
the container. This process is called homogenization and it makes the milk smooth
and creamy. Homogenization is any of several processes used to make a
chemical mixture the same throughout. It is normally preceded by "standardization"
(the mixing of several different milking herds and/or dairies to produce a more
consistent raw milk prior to processing and to prevent or delay natural separation
of cream from the rest of the emulsion). The fat in milk normally separates from the
water and collects at the top. Homogenization breaks the fat into smaller sizes so it

no longer separates, allowing the sale of non-separating milk at any fat

specification.
Separation involves spinning milk through a centrifuge to separate the cream
from the milk. After separation, the cream and remaining milk are remixed to
provide the desired fat content for the different types of milk being produced. For
"whole milk," the cream is reintroduced until the fat content reaches 3.25%. For
"low fat milk," the fat content is 1%. For "skim milk" (sometimes called nonfat milk)
the fat content is .05%.
The milk is again stored and kept cool ready for packaging. Some milk is
processed further by micro-filtration, increasing the storage life by ultra high
temperature (UHT) treatment and mixing or culturing milk to make other dairy foods
such as cheese, yogurt, butter and ice cream.
At the factory, milk is sent through a processing line to be packaged in
cartons or bottles. Cartons are made from cardboard lined with a polyethylene
plastic. The cartons, in varying sizes, are flat and then are formed into their proper
shape in a machine just before being filled. Once the correct amount of milk has
been put in, the carton is heat sealed, stamped with the use-by date and packaged
in milk crates which are stored in a huge cool room until they are collected from the
factory.
After packaging, the milk is finally ready for the customers, and it is stored in
a big, refrigerated room until it is delivered to stores to be sold.
III. References
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0007e/t0007e06.htm#5.1 Machines
Sardine
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6826420_sardines-processed_.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canned_fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_processing
http://milk.procon.org
http://www.dairy.edu.au

for

Canning

Food and Beverage Processing

Group 4

Submitted by:
Unday, Ivy Marie M.
Romero, Claire S.
Tangcay, Harold R.
Rojas, Kurt D.