In this course, we continue our focus on ingredient uniformity and how it leads to food safety and food product performance, specifically addressing growing environment, climate and weather.
Manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness are enhanced by ingredient uniformity. Yet in food processing, ingredients are never perfectly consistent. In the production of salted nuts, peanut butter, peanut candies and other peanut products, the biological nature of peanuts lends itself to variations in ingredient uniformity. Each peanut manufacturing sector has its own sensitivities to different aspects of “consistency” in incoming materials. For example, confectioners are sensitive to kernel size and oleic acid levels, shell color is critical to inshell Virginia and Valencia markets, and total fat is important in peanut butter manufacturing. Nonetheless, no manufacturer tolerates inconsistencies with aflatoxin. Aflatoxin, a toxic metabolite produced by select fungi, particularly Aspergillus flavus, under certain environmental conditions can contaminate peanuts at various stages in the supply chain (For more information, see the IEH Academy eLearning course – Mycotoxins: Aflatoxin Overview).
To register for this course, please visit our training portal.
