VALUE ADDITION AND FOOD SAFETY MODULE FOR CHILI

Introduction

3.1 Background information

Chilli is a fruit of the plant Capsicum annuum and Capsicum frutecens that come from the genus capsicum belonging to the family of Solanaceae which also includes tomato and potato. Capsicum is derived from the Greek word ‘Kapsimo’ meaning ‘to bite’. Originally from South and Central America, their popularity continues to grow across the world due to the ease of cultivation, frequently sharp taste and attractive appearance. There are more than 200 common names in use for this spices. The most common include Chilli pepper, paprika (sweet varieties), Christmas pepper (ornamental), bell pepper (hot varieties). Chilli is considered one of the mostly widely used spices in the world highlighting its commercial importance.

Chili is one of the most produced spice crop in Africa. It is used in a variety of cuisine in the world in different forms as green chili, dried red chili as a whole or in powder form. Chilies contains large amounts of vitamin C, small amounts of carotene, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, potassium, magnesium, and iron (Alam, 2020). Chili is known for its numerous health benefits including serving as an antioxidant in the body, reducing damaging effects of low density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol), lowering and regulating blood sugar, helping in weight loss and boosting immune system. In Rwanda, chilies represent a centrally managed value chain and many smallholders are supported in production by their buyers (either exporters or processors). Certain districts of the country are the largest producers of chilli including: Kamonyi, Gisagara, Muhanga, Nyaruguru, Nyanza, Ruhango, Huye and Nyamagabe and this presents the potential for clustering effects. Some chili varieties require little production knowhow and are a relatively simple crop to grow (Feed the future, 2018).

In Rwanda the following varieties of chilli are grown: the Rwandan bird eye chilli, red chilli, orange chilli and yellow chilli. Chilli provides a livelihood sources for farmers and those involved in the value chain. Rwanda exports 21 tonnes of chilli annually however there is still room for growth through reduction of post-harvest losses. Some of the causes of post-harvest losses include: rough handling that causes damage and increased deterioration. Another challenge is the lack of cold chains and cold storage facilities used for green chillies. Leaving green chilies at ambient temperature for 24 hours after the harvest results in 13 % weight loss. In addition to these challenges there is also limited processing and value addition to the raw chilli.

 

4. Principles and Methods of Value Addition

4.1 Chilli Pre-processing

Chilli pre-processing includes; cleaning, removal of inedible parts, drying, disintegration or size reduction.

Figure 4.1: A sample of harvested red and green chilies

Source: (Sowbhagya, 2019)

4.2 Harvesting

Processing does not involve harvesting however, harvesting is a factor that influences the quality of product. Correct harvesting techniques are one of the most important factors in the production of a high quality final product. For processing, chilies should be picked when mature and at colour-break where it start to turn red in colour.

4.3 Cleaning

Chilies should be cleaned before processing. The first stage is to remove dust and dirt using a winnowing basket. Small machines are available for cleaning but they are rarely cost effective. After winnowing the crop needs to be washed in clean water. For larger quantities a small sink needs to be constructed. This can be made out of concrete. However, the water must be changed regularly to prevent recontamination by dirty water. Only potable water should be used. Care should be taken not to over-wet the chilies as they absorb and retain water and thus may take long to dry.

4.4 Removal of inedible parts

The stems and leaves are removed by cutting with a knife. All the damaged and broken pods are eliminated to reduce mould growth and fungal contamination.

4.5 Drying

This is by far the most important stage of the process. If the chilies are not fully dried or if they take a long time to dry, they will be prone to mould growth and spoilage. The choice of dryer is dependent on the climate at the harvest time and the intended end use of the chilies. For home use of the dried chilies, sun drying is the most preferable and affordable method. If a solar dryer is available, it is advantageous to use as it speed up the drying process and result in a higher quality dried chili. The final moisture content should be 10% wet basis.

4.6 Grading

In some cases, the dried chilies need to be graded to gain a premium price for high quality packaged products. Chilies are graded by colour and size – the brighter the colour red the better. Grading is carried out by hand picking.

4.7 Disintegration or size reduction (Grinding)

Dried chillies can either be sold whole or ground into a powder. Grinding is one way of adding value to the product. Grinders that are used include manual and mechanical ones.

 

 

5.0 Value Adding Technologies

Chili value added products include; dried chilies, chili powder, chili sauces, canned chilies, chili pickles and chili paste.

5.1 Drying the chilies (Dehydration)

The chilies are first washed thoroughly under running tap water and then blanched at 93°C in plain water or in 2% sodium chloride (NaCl) solution for 4 minutes or dipped in hot water for 1-2 minutes. Blanching is done to maintain the colour of the chilies. Dry the chilies using a solar dryer or sunlight to a moisture content of approximately 5% extends the storage life of the product (Glodjinon et al., 2019). When an oven is used, drying is done at 120℃ (Owusu-Kwarteng, Kori and Akabanda, 2017).

Figure 5.1: Sun drying of chilies

 

Figure 5.2: Solar drying of chilies

 

 

 

5.2 Pickling of chilies

Fermentation is the oldest method of pickling and it refers to the controlled decomposition of food. In fermented pickles salt is used to: control texture, reduce microbial growth and ensures attainment of required acidity (Sultana, Iqbal and Islam, 2014).

Procedure of pickling;

1. Wash the chilies thoroughly using clean water.
2. Remove inedible and unwanted parts including damaged chili pods.
3. Place the chilies in salt solution of 10% concentration during the first week and increase by 1% up to 16% until completion of the fermentation process (Sultana, Iqbal and Islam, 2014)
4.  

 Immerse in vinegar (acetic acid)

Pickling preserves the chilies for months as the salinity and acidity of the chilies inhibits microbial growth

5.3 Canning of chillies

Canning is also a preservation method in which the products are heated in sealed airtight containers to kill microorganisms that cause spoilage. To achieve this the chilies are:

1. Blanched for 4 minutes at 93℃
2. Treated with 0.2 % sodium metabisulphite for colour preservation
3. Packed in hermetically sealed containers(cans) and heated
4. Store in a cool dry place

Figure 5.3: Pickled chillies

 

5.4 Freezing chilies

Storage of the chilies at 4℃ refrigerated extends shelf life for more than 20 days (Sanatombi and Rajkumari, 2020).

5.5 Chili powder production

Chili powder production follows a number of steps as shown in Figure 5.4.

1. The chilies are washed thoroughly with clean water.
2. All the unwanted parts are removed including seeds and stems.
3. Drying is done in direct sunlight or in an oven at 120℃ to a moisture content of 5%.
4. The chilies are ground mechanically into fine powder.
5. Aflatoxin analysis is done to ensure a maximum of 10 parts per billion (ppb) level is attained.
6. The powder is then packaged into containers

Figure 5.4: The process flow of chilli powder

Source: (Ozturkoglu-Budak, 2017)

 

5.6 Chilli Sauces

Pure chilli sauce is processed by the following procedure (Figure 5.5) adopted from (Liong, Hamid and Ibrahim, 2016)

1. Clean the dried chilies to separate impurities
2. Boil over medium heat until they are tender in texture
3. Drain the water from the boiled chilies
4. Grind the chilies until a smooth paste is formed using a grinding machine
5. Mix the paste with other ingredients (sugar, salt, water, starch, preservatives)
6. Cook the mixture in a pot at 82-88℃ and bring it to a simmer
7. Pour the cooked sauce in a container for bottling when hot(hot filling into bottles)
8. Turn the filled bottles upside down to remove the head space (create a vacuum on the head)
9. Label the bottles and store

 

Figure 5.5: Chilli process flow

Source: (Liong, Hamid and Ibrahim, 2016)

 

5.7 Chilli paste production

Chilli paste can be prepared by using the following procedure adopted from (Sharoba, 2014)

• Wash chillies and slice with knives as approximate sizes of 15 mm x 15 mm.
• The slices are blanched with hot water at 95°C for 5 min.
• Drying of chillies by using the solar drying. Here the chilli slices are put on the shelves of the drying bin and hot air passes through (Note: Fresh chillies can be used)
• Grind the dried chillies into a fine powder
• Make a puree using the chilli powder - Use a pan to concentrate the puree by heating at a moderate temperature, stir constantly until the mixture reached a temperature between 75 and 80°C, and has attained a TSS (total soluble solids) content of 25%±1.
• Add 3% salt.
• Pour into the glass jar, while still hot, seal the caps (lids), and pasteurize at 85-90 °C for 15 min.

 

Figure 5.6: Chilli paste

Source: https://pickledplum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/gochujang-4OPTM.jpg; https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1850/3367/products/GOCHUJANG_large.jpg?v=1580848131

 

 

6. Introduction to Product Quality Assurance       

6.1 Food safety and Standards applied

Food safety is the assurance that food will not cause harm to the consumer if handled and prepared as per the intended use. Food safety includes handling practices like preparation, packaging, storage and transportation.

 

6.2 Types of food safety standards

Food safety standards may be of various types:

• numerical standards defining required characteristics of products, such as contaminant limits or maximum residue limits (including methods of sampling and analysis to be applied in the measurement of the specified characteristic)
• process standards that define how the food should be produced including verifiable performance objectives which may be numerical
• Process standards that define the requirements of the management system such as documentation requirements.

6.3 International food safety standards

• World Trade Organization (WTO) - the WTO provides a set of rules for multilateral trade, and is a forum to resolve disputes and negotiate new rules. Since standards are essential for smooth trade, the WTO Agreements strongly encourage governments to harmonize their requirements on the basis of international standards (CODEX Alimentarius, 1997; FAO, 2017)
• HACCP- (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point). Usually, HACCP is a process standard that consists of an internal team identifying critical control points throughout the process (Vieira, 2006) with aim of controlling hazards in foods
• Good manufacturing practices (GMP) - is a system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards. It is designed to minimize the risks involved in any pharmaceutical production that cannot be eliminated through testing the final product.
• Good Hygienic practices (GHP)- covers the minimum sanitary and hygiene practices for food processors, such as hotels and restaurants, to ensure that food is safe and suitable for human consumption. It is a required foundation to implement other food safety management initiatives, such as GMP, HACCP and ISO 22000.
• ISO standards- are internationally standards by International Standards Organization outlining the requirements for making a product, managing a process, delivering a service or supplying materials and a huge range of activities.

6.4 Basic Characteristics of a Standard

• Unambiguous, testable (verifiable), clear (concise, terse, simple, precise
• provide a high level of health protection
• Have clear definitions to increase consistency and legal security
• Should be based on high quality, transparent, and independent scientific advice following risk assessment, risk management and risk communication;
• Include provisions for the right of consumers to have access to accurate and sufficient information;
• Provide for tracing of food products and for their recall in case of problems
• Include obligation to ensure that only safe and fairly presented food is placed on the market;
• It should also recognize the country's international obligations particularly in relation to trade

6.5 Importance of Standards

·         Maintaining potentially hazardous food at correct temperatures- to limit growth of food poisoning bacteria, the food is kept at temperature of between 5℃ and 60℃

·         Cooking or another processing step to make food safe-temperature specifications ensure that cooking is done correctly

·          Protecting food from contamination- the specifications ensure that food is free from contamination

·         Food disposal-returned foods are disposed-off effectively

·         Food recall-ensures product recall is documented

Source: (Swami, 2013)

 

 

7. Product Traceability   

Traceability’ means the ability to trace and follow a food, feed, food producing animal or substance intended to be, or expected to be used for these products at all of the stages of production, processing and distribution.”

Traceability is the “ability to maintain a credible custody of identification for food products through various steps within the food chain from the farm to the retailer” (CODEX, 2002). The traceability is a key factor for imposing food safety standards. An effective and economically sound tracing system should identify specific areas, where the problems stem from (Savov and Kouzmanov, 2014).

 Internal traceability -Traceability between the received unit (or raw material unit) and the sold unit (or product unit) at the food operator level

One-step-back traceability- Ability to identify the supplier of the units they have received  If the material flow and the business flow differ, we will follow the material flow and call the one-step-back operator as “supplier”.

One-step-forward traceability -Ability to identify the buyer of the units they have sold If the material flow and the business flow differ, we will follow the material flow and call the one-step-forward operator as “buyer”

Chain traceability- Traceability throughout the food chain

7.1 Components of a traceability system

Traceability system -A series of mechanisms for traceability, by which “identification”, “link”, “records of information”, “collection and storage of information”, and “verification” are performed (Food Marketing Research and Information Center (FMRIC), 2008)

7.1.1 A mechanism for identifying Traceability Resource Units (TRUs)

When choosing how to identify TRUs, we have to choose the identifier code type and structure. Choices have be made with respect to granularity and uniqueness of the code, and associate the identifier with the TRU (Olsen and Borit, 2018).

7.1.2 A mechanism for documenting transformations

Once the type of identifier to use is selected and has been associated to the TRU, documentation of what happens to the TRU as it moves through the supply chain needs to be done. The supply chain for food products is often long and complex, and TRUs do not necessarily last long; they are constantly split up, or joined together with other TRUs. These splits and joins are referred to as transformations, and the ability to document the sequence of transformations is one of the most important functions of the traceability system (Dillon & Derrick, 2004; Olsen & Aschan, 2010).

7.1.3 A mechanism for recording TRU attributes

Once we have selected what type of identifier to use, and we have found a way to associate the identifier to the TRU, we have the ability to record attributes associated with the TRU in  question, and to link these attributes to the TRU identifier (Olsen and Borit, 2018).

 

 

8. Equipment / processor Maintenance and Operation 

8.1 Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance can be defined as follows: Actions performed on a time- or machine-run-based schedule that detect, preclude, or mitigate degradation of a component or system with the aim of sustaining or extending its useful life through controlling degradation to an acceptable level.

Advantages

• Cost effective in many capital-intensive processes.
• Flexibility allows for the adjustment of maintenance periodicity.
• Increased component life cycle.
• Energy savings.
• Reduced equipment or process failure.
•  Estimated 12% to 18% cost savings over reactive maintenance program.

Disadvantages

• Catastrophic failures still likely to occur.
• Labour intensive.
• Includes performance of unneeded maintenance.
• Potential for incidental damage to components in conducting unneeded maintenance.

8.2 Predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance can be defined as follows: Measurements that detect the onset of a degradation mechanism, thereby allowing casual stressors to be eliminated or controlled prior to any significant deterioration in the component physical state. Results indicate current and future functional capability (Sullivan et al., 2002).

Advantages

• Increased component operational life/availability.
• Allows for pre-emptive corrective actions.
• Decrease in equipment or process downtime.
• Decrease in costs for parts and labour.
• Better product quality.
• Improved worker and environmental safety.
• Improved worker moral.
• Energy savings.
• Estimated 8% to 12% cost savings over predictive maintenance program.

 

 

Disadvantages

• Increased investment in diagnostic equipment.
• Increased investment in staff training.
• Savings potential not readily seen by management.

8.3 Corrective Maintenance

Corrective maintenance is defined as actions carried. It is one that occurs after the identification and diagnosis of a problem. It is maintenance identified by a condition monitoring system or due to breakdown. Corrective maintenance, as a subset of comprehensive preventive maintenance focuses on planned activities that maintain all parts of machinery and systems in best possible working form. The major aim of corrective maintenance is that repairs are carried out properly and completely on all emerging problems on a need basis. Also that the repairs are carried out by well-trained craftsmen and confirmed before the machine is returned to operation (Otieno, 2016)

The major weakness of corrective maintenance is that there is unscheduled machine downtime and maintenance cannot be pre-planned. If a machine part fails and the spare parts are not maintained by the firm or are not readily available delays occur between the ordering and delivery causing delays in production.

 

 

9. Conclusion

Chilli production is high in Rwanda, however, huge postharvest losses are incurred due to low value addition. The aim of this training is to equip farmers, SMEs and other processors with knowledge on preservation methods, value addition and safety protocols to increase production and marketing of chillies.

 

 

10. References

Alam, D. M. M. (2020) ‘Value Chain Analysis of High Value Crop: Farm to Market’, International Supply Chain Technology Journal, 6(5). doi: 10.20545/isctj.v06.i05.02.

CODEX Alimentarius (1997) ‘Codex Alimentarius : food quality and safety standards for international trade’, 16(2), pp. 313–321.

FAO (2017) Trade and food standards.

Feed the future (2018) Post harvest assessment of green chillies in Rwanda.

Food Marketing Research and Information Center (FMRIC) (2008) Handbook for Introduction of Food Traceability Systems.

Liong, C. Y., Hamid, S. H. A. and Ibrahim, I. M. (2016) ‘Improving the performance of chili sauce manufacturing process using simulation approach’, AIP Conference Proceedings, 1750(June 2016). doi: 10.1063/1.4954562.

M. Glodjinon, N. et al. (2019) ‘The technical production, storage and conservation routes of chilli peppers (Capsicum spp.) produced in Benin and constraints impeding the development of the sector.’, Journal of Animal & Plant Sciences, 42.3(3), pp. 7279–7295. doi: 10.35759/janmplsci.v42-3.1.

Maurine, O. (2016) ‘CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE PRACTICES AND OPERATIONAL’, (November).

Olsen, P. and Borit, M. (2018) ‘SC’, Trends in Food Science & Technology. Elsevier Ltd. doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2018.05.004.

Owusu-Kwarteng, J., Kori, F. K. K. and Akabanda, F. (2017) ‘Effects of Blanching and Natural Convection Solar Drying on Quality Characteristics of Red Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)’, International Journal of Food Science, 2017. doi: 10.1155/2017/4656814.

Ozturkoglu-Budak, S. (2017) ‘A model for implementation of HACCP system for prevention and control of mycotoxins during the production of red dried chili pepper’, Food Science and Technology, 37, pp. 24–29. doi: 10.1590/1678-457X.30316.

Sanatombi, K. and Rajkumari, S. (2020) ‘Effect of Processing on Quality of Pepper: A Review’, Food Reviews International. Taylor & Francis, 36(6), pp. 626–643. doi: 10.1080/87559129.2019.1669161.

Savov, A. V and Kouzmanov, G. B. (2014) ‘Food Quality and Safety Standards at a Glance’, 2818(2009). doi: 10.2478/V10133-009-0012-8.

Sharoba, A. (2014) ‘PRODUCING AND EVALUATION OF RED PEPPER PASTE AS NEW FOOD’, (January 2009).

Sowbhagya, H. B. (2019) ‘Value-added processing of by-products from spice industry’, Food Quality and Safety, 3(2), pp. 73–80. doi: 10.1093/fqsafe/fyy029.

Sullivan, G. P. and Pugh, R.Melendez, A. P.Hunt, W. D. (2002) Operations & Maintenance.

Sultana, S., Iqbal, A. and Islam, M. N. (2014) ‘Preservation of carrot, green chilli and brinjal by fermentation and pickling’, International Food Research Journal, 21(6), pp. 2405–2412.

Swami, C. (2013) ‘FACULTY OF BIOSCIENCE ENGINEERING Importance of food safety and quality standards at various levels in the tomato supply chain of South Africa’, pp. 1–78.

Vieira, L. M. (2006) ‘The Role of Food Standards in International Trade : Assessing the Brazilian Beef Chain’, (September 2005), pp. 17–30.