Receiving
Snow peas will be received at the
factory after the intake assessment has been done and that they would comply
with the customer specification. Raw materials which do not meet those set
quality parameters will be rejected at this point.
These produce will be received at
the factory in clean crates and will be stored in the cold store at 8°c +-2to
facilitate preservation.
PROCESSING
The purpose of
this procedure is to give sequential steps and controls that are followed by
the operators while preparing frozen snow peas.
Washing:
Turnips will be washed
in chlorinated water at 50 – 100 ppm ensure compliance before cutting to reduce
possible microbiological load.
Blanching:
Blanching will be
done on the blancher, blanching time and temperature will be monitored and recorded.
The water temperature shall be maintained at 92ºC. The snow peas are blanched
at 92ºC for 7 mins and then cooled immediately. A peroxidase test will be done
after half an hour to determine if blanching was effective. Q.C department
shall keep records for both peroxidase test and blanching temperatures.
Spin Drying, Arrangement in
Freezer Crates and Air Drying
The
snow peas are spin dried using a spin dryer and then spread evenly in the
freezer crates
Air Drying
The
freezer crates with the products are arranged in an air dryer. The excess water
from the surface of the product is blown off. The products are offloaded from
the air dryer after sufficient drying and loaded to the Freezer.
Blast freezing process
The
Freezer crates are arranged inside the Blast freezers .The snow peas will be
subjected to a very cold blast of air from the side of the freezer which will
then freeze the snow peas individually.
Freezing
in the blast freezer should be done for a minimum of 40 minutes at -35°C to -40°C
Proper
monitoring of the Blast freezer temperatures shall be done and recorded.
The following details shall be
recorded for each batch:
1.
Time in
2.
Temperature in
3.
Time out
4.
Temperature out
Packing, weighing and sealing
The snow peas is offloaded from the freezers
and taken to the tables for packing into labeled bags. The packed bags are
weighed correctly and then sealed well.
Metal Detection
All bags are passed through the
metal detector to check on presence of metals inside the bags.
The packs are packed into the final
boxes after passing the Metal detector and then palletized in the cold room.
All packed cartons shall be stored in the cold room at -18°C. All cold room
temperatures shall be monitored regularly.
