Egyptian snack leader achieves efficiency to innovate a tasty and guilt-free snack experience, making full use of tna’s extensive expertise.
Egyptian snack manufacturer Future Foods has launched a new pretzel range after collaborating with tna, a leading solutions provider in the food processing and packaging industry. This partner- ship enabled Future Foods to install a seasoning, processing and packaging line, and in doing so to achieve 100% productivity at speeds of up to 165 bags per minute (BPM).
With pretzels representing the fastest-growing segment in the savoury snack category, expecting a CAGR of 5.8% during 2016–2020, it was natural that Future Foods, as a company which prides itself on bringing new and innovative products to the market, would seek to capitalise.
To embrace the pretzel trend, Future Foods invested in a high- quality range which delivers a healthy, guilt-free snacking experience. Gaining consumer acceptance at the first bite is vital when launching any new food product. Applying an incorrect level of seasoning can affect both input costs in terms of raw materials and wastage costs from rejected products that are either over- or under-seasoned. For seasoning, Future Foods opted for the tna intelliflav OMS 5, a responsive variable mass seasoning mechanism with dynamic vibratory weigher. This allows for precise control within the drum, enabling a proportional amount of seasoning to be evenly applied.
George Soussou, Vice-Chairman and Operations Director at Future Foods, said: “As we produce a delicate product that is new to the market, we had to make sure we deliver a consistently seasoned, great-tasting product to appeal to the consumer. tna helped us efficiently spray our seasoning powders with zero waste. This is ultimately why our snacks taste better than those of the competition.”
Further performance benefits are achieved through the enhanced position of the scarfplate on the tna intelli-flav OMS 5 infeed. Mounted to the edge of the drum, the scarf provides an even amount of seasoning on each pretzel.
When it came to choosing a distribution system, minimising product breakage and ease of cleaning were critical factors. From the start, Future Foods knew reducing product damage or flavor loss was key, so opted for equipment that aided a gentle transfer.
The chosen distribution system, the tna roflo HM 3 horizontal motion conveyor, ensures a smooth product transfer through the line, while keeping product damage to a minimum. With the installation of several tna systems, breakage level from seasoning to packaging is less than 0.5%.
With the installation of two tna robag FX 3ci vertical form, fill and seal packaging systems, the production line offers flexibility and improved performance in a com- pact, easy-to-clean set up. With their rotary double jaws, the new baggers deliver speeds of up to 165 BPM, while quick-release formers ensure changes between bag sizes can be done in less than three minutes.
Mr Soussou adds: “The new packaging systems are very reliable, achieving 100% productivity at very high speeds. What’s more, with less than 1% film waste, we achieved significant cost savings. Adding to that, the user-friendliness of the machine and the ease of changeover between bag sizes keeps downtime to a mini- mum, further increasing our production efficiencies.
“As a new company it was essential for Future Foods to work with a reliable partner that could ensure a smooth startup, achieve line efficiency and deliver the best return on investment.”
Packaging MEA Technology Editor Vikram Fotedar recently dropped in on Future Foods’ Cairo factory and grabbed a few words with Mr Soussou for the magazine.
While he was there, Mr Soussou gave Vikram a demonstration of the technology. “We start with flour feeding. Our line is 100% fully auto- mated except the manual feeding of the bags into the carton and the flour feeding into the FFS line,” he said. “It is a fully automated line from start till the end.”
Vikram Fotedar (VF): Is the suction from the silos of the flour also automated?
George Soussou (GS): Water and oil goes into the mixer and we do three batches per hour. The standard in baking is one batch every 30 minutes, at 150kg per batch. After mixing, the dough is divided into smaller chunks. You can change the die plate and get different shapes. Once you have the extrusion, we have it on the line. This is the proofing belt which goes to the alkaline bath in order to make pretzel dough. The pretzel has an alkaline coating applied before baking. The pretzel goes into the alkaline belt and since it is wet and sticky, we sprinkle salt using the drum and then it goes into the oven.
As the pretzels exit the oven, the moisture level is 12%, but when they come back it is 2%, which is the moisture in normal snacks. In between there is a seasoning drum.
We have a Yamato machine to accommodate high capacity, which is a 14-bucket machine. These go into the vertical machines and can reach up to 170 BPM on pretzel lines. For corn, which has less bulk density, we reached 140 even though tna said only 110 could be achieved.
We wanted to come up with a good baked product and so used the same drier from baking. This is how we go into baking corn products. We were told the distribution of corn snacks without slurry was not feasible. We challenged the idea and have been successful.
VF: What is the shelf life of your packs for snacks production?
GS: Sealability is the most important factor in packaging. If you have the best product in the world and it is not sealed in a tight pack, you have accomplished nothing. The shelf life for pretzels is one year and for corn snacks is three months. We want to extend this to six months. We already have export links, but three months [shelf life] is not enough. This is why we want to increase it six months.
VF: Your typical packing method is you put the chips bags in the corrugated boxes and then on to the pallets and shrink-wrap them?
GS:Yes.
VF: Are these destined for supermarkets?
GS: It depends on the country. In Jordan and Lebanon, we are focused on organised and traditional trade, as well as schools. In Palestine, they take only the big bags, such as family packs of 100g or more. In Palestine, it is mainly wholesalers and supermarkets. They know pretzels very well. There are 10 lines of pretzels in Israel, but we could offer the product to Palestine at a cheaper price than in Israel. This is why it is one of our best markets.
VF: How are you managing sustainability and food safety?
GS: Food safely is a pillar in our factory because you cannot sustain the business without it. Also, we export to different countries with different standards. We have to abide by international food safety. We are 22000-certified – HACCP programme.
Regarding sustainability, we try to minimise consumption of film, and the tna machine allows us to do so. When you minimise the overlap and seal of the pack, you minimise the footprint of the film as waste. The day we started we designed our own logo encouraging consumers to reuse the carton. We were the first to do this in Egypt, because most people just throw cartons away.
VF: Can you tell me a little about your background?
GS: I come from a family of manufacturers. My grandfather had a soap factory in Old Cairo. My father was the chief area executive for fine tissues in North Africa for 30 years. After graduating [from the American University in Cairo] I worked for Edita, one of the leading manufacturers in Egypt, as an operations engineer for five years, then in the supply chain and marketing departments for five years. In 2016 my father retired and I wanted to pursue my interests [by setting up Future Foods]. The Egyptian economy was not very stable, but the snack market in Egypt is developing very fast now that the economy is improving. 2016 and 2017 were bad, 2018 it improved a little, 2019 was good. In Egypt you will see a lot of change and development in snacks in the food market.
We’ve opened new markets nobody has thought of entering, like Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco. We are trying to work with a big airline in UK. We have lot of projects coming up.