Snacks with high consumer appeal

TECHNOLOGY to make premium snack products with high added value utilise the flexibility of extrusion and other processes. The extrusion process enables a wide variety of different grains and other ingredients to be used to achieve exciting taste and texture combinations with high consumer appeal. For companies targeting the bagged snack market these include a process that uses an extruder to produce a thin sheet of cooked dough, which may be cut, fried or baked and flavoured. Another new concept, also intended as a bagged snack, is the extrusion of flavoured croutons. 'Credit cards' are novel slim, flat, rectangular co-extruded wafers that can incorporate a wide variety of savoury or sweet fillings. They may be positioned as snacks in their own right or as 'dipping' products - perhaps a peanut butter snack into savoury spread, or a tomato filled snack into cheese. These innovative ideas utilise the Baker Perkins SBX Master twin- screw cooker extruder, a solid-barrel unit offering process flexibility through modular design, high free-volume geometry and high torque capacity. With the range of barrel diameters available outputs from 225 to 2,000kg per hr are possible. These extruders are used in the snack industry both as stand-alone machines, and as part of production systems that can be expanded to extend the variety and consumer appeal of end products. The Baker Perkins Snack Master concept allows a wide choice of equipment to be added to an existing line, with minimal investment. As an alternative to conventional frying, hot air expansion can be used to process extruded pellets into a finished snack. During traditional frying, snack pellets absorb a high percentage of oil giving them a high fat content; hot air expansion produces snacks of Snacks with high consumer appeal comparable texture and appearance, with a minimum amount of oil being applied at the end of the process for flavouring. Improving process efficiency Industrial snack and bakery manufacturers can improve process efficiency with a strong and lightweight belt for conveying pans, trays, and large products. Ashworth's Omni-Pro FlexLite utilises a durable, lightweight, and very open 1.5"x 3"(fixed loop) flat wire overlay. The belt has increased carrying capacity, greater air circulation, and a spiral/turn-curve tension rating of 400 lbs. for 100,000 cycles, vs. competing belts that rate for 50,000 cycles. It incorporates all of the Omni-Pro features that reduce maintenance costs and downtime, and reduce sanitation costs. Turn ratios range from 1.6 to 2.5 and belt widths are available in even widths from 24 to 60 inches. Omni-Pro FlexLite is also BISSC (Baking Industry Sanitation Standards Committee) certified and third party verified under BISSC standard ANSI/BISSC/Z50.2-2003, Section 4.7, Design Requirements for Conveyors. Wafer stick baking oven An automatic wafer stick-baking oven from Franz Haas, the EWB-R IND, can be either for unfilled or cream-filled wafer sticks (wafer flutes). It features a baking ring with electric induction heating that is environmentally friendly with no hazardous emissions, a high heat efficiency of more than 70%, and low operating noise. All electric and electronic components are integrated into the machine to make installation simpler and reduce space requirements. The design contributes to a pleasant working area temperature through all stainless steel panelling with vented side doors. Optional add-on devices allow a wide variety of different end products, such as two-coloured sticks, flattened sticks, fan-shaped wafers or pillow-shaped sticks. (the finished)Air Jordan 1