Key Points to Maintain the Quality of Spices

 

Spices are valuable commodities with a significant impact on the economies of many countries. Being delicate products that can be damaged by high temperature and extreme processing, spices need special care to ensure their top-quality. Here are a few key quality control points to keep in mind:

Correct harvesting time - Harvesting spices at the right stage of maturity is crucial for producing high-quality products. However, spices are often harvested prematurely, before the flavour and aroma fully develop, resulting in inferior taste and quality.

Cleaning - Spice crops are quite often contaminated by dust, dirt, insects, animal droppings etc. The crop must be cleaned before processing, with contaminants removed and washed in clean, portable water. Clean water is essential as spices are not heat treated later during processing and the use of dirty water can introduce harmful bacteria leading to food poisoning.

Drying - This is the most crucial part of processing to ensure good quality spices. Inadequately dried produce can lead to mold growth, reducing the sale value to less than 50% of the normal value. Additionally, the growth of food poisoning bacteria on some spices poses a real danger, if proper washing and drying procedures are not followed.

Grading - Spices can be graded by size, density, colour, shape and flavour. They can be sold whole or ground into powder. Grinding can add value to the product, but it can also detract from the quality of the product. For a good and quality production process, the grinding mill needs to be placed in a separate or well-ventilated room due to the dust. Great care is needed to ensure a uniformly sized powder after grinding.

Packaging and Storage - After grinding, the material should be packed quickly into clean, heavy gauge polypropylene sacks to avoid moisture absorption. The spices must be cool before packing into bags and should be stored away from direct sunlight. Sacks should be labelled and graded. Packaging requirements depend on the type of spice, whether ground or intact, and the humidity of storage. It is better to store spices in barrier film such as polypropylene to provide an attractive package, retain spice quality and prevent contamination and losses. If polypropylene is not available, cellulose film is adequate. Polythene is a poor substitute and should only be used for short term storage, as it allows the flavour/aroma of the spices to escape.

Mechair Industries is the leading supplier of spice processing plants, offering processing lines for various spices such as cardamom, black pepper, coriander and cumin. To know more about our products and services, visit our website https://mechair.in/