Puffed snack making machine

In the snack food industry, most products are often fried or extruded with a cooker, before being dusted with oil and flavours. This makes it difficult filling the demands for more healthier, low-fat snacks. Having equipment that adds minimal oil in the process could be an answer to the market demand.

Expanding snacks in hot air

The TORBED Food Processor by Torftech is capable of expanding the ‘semi’ finished snack pellets of a wide variety in hot air, producing an oil free base product that can then be flavoured with minimal oil addition (of 7 to 10 percent). The machine, capable of drying, roasting, toasting, puffing and heating food, uses high velocity hot air to cook the food product. The machine suspends a rotating bed of free flowing food particles above a ring of static vanes through which high velocity air is achieved with the whole surface of each particle being uniformly heated. This rapid heat transfer system allows extruded snack pellets to be ‘puffed’ in the machine at a high temperature. A big difference in oil use, compared to the traditional method, where deep frying is more common.

The processor can easily be changed for different products with different characteristics. The processing rates of the series are 70, 250 and 500 kilograms per hour.

Benefits

  • Reduced waste
  • Low maintenance
  • All electrical processing
  • All electrical processing
  • Consistent quality of end product