Drying Food for Profit : A Guide for Small Businesses

This book has been written for existing and future entrepreneurs who wish to produce dry foods commercially at small and medium scale. Great effort has been made to use simple language but at the same time to examine all relevant technical aspects.It starts with examining the basic principles of drying, together with the basic food technology involved.This is followed by aspects related to markets including advice on carrying out a market survey, and marketing or selling the product both locally, nationally and internationally. On the assumption that a market exists, the publication then examines operational aspects related to the drying of common food groups and advice on establishing production, planning quality assurance and costing the product. The section ends with advice on preparing a business plan.The final chapter considers the design of a dryer for a given application. This chapter, which involves highly technical calculations, has been simplified so that those who can add, subtract, multiply and divide and calculate percentages will be able to design a dryer for any application. It is mainly aimed at engineers who need to be able to know how to design a dryer.Case studies are included together with an example of a business plan.