New state of the art vegetable canning process in East Africa

Tag : vegetable packing


Afrigarnics East Africa is pleased to offer canned vegetablesincluding green Beans, baby corn, Bullet chili, Long chili andmange tout. With the current increase in freight costs which areset to increase even higher, it is becoming increasingly difficultto become competitive in the world market.

Afrigarnics management team decided to invest in a state of the artprocessing plant aimed at canning/jarring our fresh produce whichhave a 3 year shelf life and can therefore be delivered by sea atmuch lower price than air freight.

The canning process

The process begins with Grading. Experienced Graders remove allthe non-conforming beans (e.g. shrivelled, spotted, bruised,over-sized, under-sized). Utmost hygiene is maintained. Continuousquality control analysis is done to ensure conformity tospecifications.



Quality controls then keeps records of all the non-conforming beanswhich is then communicated to the farmers and used as training aids as well as learning tools to drive towards elimination ofnon-conforming defective products.

The process is then followed by Snipping This involves the propercutting of the tips (ball & axialis, and tail) of the slenderbean by a group of expert Snippers.
The art of proper snipping assures that the tips (an unwantedproduct) are cut in even and uniform manner, and that the productis not bruised or punctured in any way, while at the same timeensuring that the process is fast and efficient with minimumwastage possible. Again emphasis is placed on maintaining thehighest quality standards.

The snipped beans are then soaked, washed and rinsed in threeconsecutive water tanks to thoroughly clean the beans. Aninternationally recognised food grade cleaning sanitizer is usedwhen soaking the beans. The water used for these processes is alsoanalysed and records of mineral concentration are kept to ensurethe highest level of sanitation standards are followed andmaintained.

The cleaned and inspected product is passed through a hot waterblancher via a conveyor belt system. Through this blanchingprocess, a lot is achieved that impacts on the final quality of theproduct: This thoroughly cleans the beans, preserves its naturalcolour, and also makes it partially soft to ensure propersubsequent processing. The blanched beans are then cooled usingclean runningwater.

Packing refers to filling the cooled product in clean andsterilized transparent glass jars in accurate fill quantitiesprescribed. The Packers use a clean scoop, wear sanitized glovesand maintain optimal hygiene when working. The beans are packedaccurately vertical to the base of the jar to ensure uniformity infilling and the final product.

The filled jar is then weighed on a well-calibrated, sensitiveElectronic Weighing Machine to assure that the fill weight iswithin the best of conformity range. Continuous monitoring of thequality of packed beans, presentation and packaging material isdone so as to undertake any immediate corrective action on anynon-conformity.

Brining is the filling of packed jars with hot salt solution, as itnot only gives the beans a pleasant taste, but also acts as anatural preservative. The brine is prepared in a steam-coil waterheating equipment. The prepared hot brine is filled in jars throughautomatically operated filling machine to the brim.

The jar is then passed through a conveyorised metal detectors,which offer the highest detection of real-life potentialcontaminants. The filled jars are capped tightly and immediately toexhaust air. Each jar is then inspected prior to the next stage ofretorting.

Retorting, also known as Sterilization or Autoclaving. Here, thestate-of-the-art Barriquand-Steriflow is used achieve this vitalprocess. The temperature and pressure during sterilization isconstantly monitored to ensure that the end product is commerciallysterile, and properly cooked to eating-quality texture. Thetemperature-time chart is electronically charted by the equipmentand forms an important Quality control record. After sterilization,the jars are wiped immediately, marked using pallet cards andtransferred to the stores.

A Video Ink jet is used to serially code every jars batch from theproduction, giving each product a Batch Number and a Best Beforedate. (Quality controllers carry out a shelf-life test on eachbatch produced to confirm this date.) The product is then neatlylabelled with the required consumer information on the product.

The labelling requirements can be customized to client's needs andrequests. The jars are then placed in cartons which can beshrink-wrapped using high-tech equipment. This enables compactpackaging and thus is easily transported to warehouse for storageor to a container awaiting shipment in palettes using the cranesystem. Proper records of the all the stages, and of the packagingmaterials and labels used, is consistently maintained.