I guess this article, originally in Slashfood.com, could be filed under new packaging, warehousing and distribution or just fast food.

American Football team the Phillies wanted to do something other than throwing t-shirt and other memorabilia to the crowds of fans at their matches.

They came up with a hot dog canon which allows them to deliver hot dogs remotely into the stands. What is amazing is the development process they ran to get the machine right.

Then to the bomb scare – hours before a game the cannon was used in the filming of a commercial but somehow three specially wrapped hotdogs where left behind. These prompted a bomb scare which lead to the evacuation of parts of the premises and the controlled detonation of the dogs! the game was not delayed.

I have often heard the sensible sounding goal of “adding value to local resources” as a base for enterprise development. However, some of my own experiences with small enterprise and the recent story below from Uganda seem to contradict this.

The first product in the New Vision story is about a Ugandan company that imports mangos concentrate from India. This seems weird as Uganda is a large mango grower and many countries in West Africa (see Mali’s Mangos) battle to use excesses. But the story makes it clear that the mangos available in Uganda do not have the same flavour as the imported pulp. Juice processors also need to produce their products the year round, so are reliant on storage which makes concentration almost a necessity.

I had a similar experience at two small scale community projects in Limpopo Province (South Africa). They were set up to produce fruit purees, but were unable to produce the quality demanded by the market as they were relying on whatever fruit was available.

The other materials which the story indicates as being in short supply compared to the food processors’s demand are tomatoes, passion fruits, pineapples, wheat and chillies, millet, banana.

The writer of the report proposes that a government supported strategy focussing on

• making inputs to the industry accessible and affordable

• sourcing and developing of markets for the industry
• developing interconnected sub industries

I can only say all this appears very unlikely to me – I must be getting the wrong information! Uganda can’t be short of bananas! can it? The article talks about potentially viable businesses where markets are in place. Surely government doesn’t have to do everything for them – if so I suspect they are actually non viable business and doesn’t deserve government to pump money in.

Somebody help me out. What is the real situation are there opportunities going to waste? Email me!

In a previous post I described the Shaka Technology based on the company’s literature.

A recent post in Food Production Daily confirms the benefits of the technology.

An October report by The French national food conservation research centre (CTCPA) stated that the process of “rapidly shaking packaged food products during sterilization reduces the processing time significantly and improves the colour, flavour, texture and ‘mouth feel’ of the food.” This was a result of being able to reduce the sterilisation cycle time by up to seven times.

Zinetec, the suppliers of the technology, say that the technology can be used with many canned, pouched and bottled food products and is suitable for thicker products, including those with larger solids. These include soups, sauces, ready meals, spreads, dips beverages, chopped vegetables and baby foods.

The capital costs is similar to conventional retorts but that the technology brings the kind of advantages to bottled foods that UHT brought to liquid foods.

We had the low carbohydrate, the low protein and the low calorie diet and the pineapple and drinking man’s diet and many others. Now we have the low Carbon (Footprint) Diet which considers the well being of the world rather than the individual.

Wikipedia defines it as

making choices about eating that reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) as a response to estimates that the U.S. food system is responsible for at least 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases

and identifies the focus areas as

• selecting low carbon foods
• reducing animal protein intake
• evaluating transport energy
• understanding processing, packaging and loss

While a number of issues like reducing loss, selecting non hot house food, eating local and reducing cooking energy inputs seem to be obvious things to do – there is a lot of debate and an the overall impact needs to always be understood.

There is a calculator that allows one to compare different dishes and meals.

Returning to the GATE system I blogged about previously (http://www.digivu.co.za/2008/05/solar-dryer-detailed-design-link/) this manual on edible oil extraction is outstanding.

The manual focusses on three case studies of the small scale expelling of sunflower, shea and palm oil, It also presents general in depth information on the world market, oil science, descriptions of all oilseed and plants, agronomy, expelling processes, expelling equipment and by-products and their use.

Overall the manual has a special focus on technical issues and development potential.

The three case studies:

• Shea Nut Processing in Mali
• Sunflower Seed Processing in Zambia
• Oil Palm Fruit Processing in Togo

cover the costing and finances of small scale processing in detail.

There is an enormous amount of detailed information presented that would definitely be of use to anyone considering setting up a business or a community project.

This short and broad review with many references may be a starting point in understanding the technology.

The review briefly describes several applications applications in Food processing, Packaging, Nutraceutical delivery and Safety & sensing.

I identifies the issues around safety that result from a lack of knowledge of the effects of nano sized fabricated materials and recommends a cautious approach.

The article has a bibliography which includes several website links which allows for further investigation even if the reader doesn’t have access to the more academic journals.