Food belong to the category of cult in our country. Whether this is due to the memory of a general deficit in the late USSR, or simply to the love of our fellow citizens for tasty and healthy food, who knows. It is only known that even among the whole variety of modern food products, our people always and everywhere emit canned food.
Stew is holy. Almost everyone can tell about the principles of her choice, about their favorite manufacturers. And almost everyone sadly notes that "canned food is not the same." So why not open your own canned food production in order to please your compatriots with the “right” product?
Justification of the project profitability
Immediately after the 2008 crisis, a strong decline was recorded in the domestic canned food market, but after 2010, production volumes approximately returned to pre-crisis levels. But to this day, market growth of 30% or more is due to imports. With this in mind, the established domestic production of canned food has every chance to occupy a worthy niche in the emerging market.
Most manufacturers produce canned fish. The number of those who chose the "meat" specialization is much smaller. This is due both to the difficulties of purchasing high-quality raw materials, and to the stringent requirements of regulatory authorities.
Much easier to produce canned vegetables, but leading retailers warn that the demand for it in our country is much lower. The sales volumes of even banal sprats in tomato far exceed those for the same canned cucumbers.
This situation is associated with the traditionally strong position of home canning in the entire former CIS, which makes the production of canned vegetables promising only if you deal with it on an industrial scale.
The situation with canned fruit is even worse: apart from the legendary canned peaches, which many have known since the same USSR, their purchases since 2011 are in a stage of stable stagnation.
Market outlook
Experts warn that high profits in this market can be expected only if the manufacturer is engaged in something really unusual. For example, a jar of deer liver paste can cost more than $ 25 and weighs less than 100 grams.
However, I want to once again note that the domestic food market in recent years has been experiencing far from the best times: the quality of canned food is low, and therefore, to confidently occupy its niche, it will be enough to establish itself as a responsible and honest producer.
Preservative Requirements
There are several basic methods for the production of canned food, the most common of which are their physical and chemical varieties. It is no secret that in modern products of this kind there are many preservatives. In principle, the whole production of canned foods is guilty of this, starting from the time that they began to be produced on an industrial scale.
Special requirements are imposed on these substances: they must be completely harmless, not violate the original taste of the product, in an unchanged state, be removed from the human body. Unfortunately, none of the common preservatives immediately meets all the requirements.
Technology
Regardless of the initial product, the standard production of canned food involves approximately the same steps. On the first of them, the raw materials are carefully examined, its organoleptic characteristics are evaluated. Fruits and vegetables are washed thoroughly, if necessary, processed with steam and / or UV radiation.
Impurities, excess veins and substandard parts are removed from the meat blocks. The same goes for fish. Further technology (the production of canned food must strictly follow it) depends solely on the type of source product.
As a rule, vegetables and fruits are pickled, for which they are laid out in jars, after which they are poured with a hot or cold (depending on the recipe) solution and sent for sterilization and capping. If it comes to the production of mashed potatoes or something like that, then the finished product is also packed in containers and goes for sterilization.
Meat and fish are most often stewed in their own juice, and for this they use industrial autoclaves, where under the tremendous pressure and temperature above 100 degrees even the spores of botulism are completely destroyed.
Equipment
Thus, you will need equipment for the production of canning lids, autoclaves, washing equipment, steam generators, conveyor lines, packaging machines, etc. Fortunately, there are currently a huge number of domestic and foreign models of this kind of equipment.
Manufacturers offer fully finished and automated lines, the cost of which largely depends on functionality and power. For example, the simplest set for rolling up canned vegetables will cost you 2 million rubles. But to this money you need to add an amount of 450-500 thousand rubles, which will go to the production of marinade. Another 300 thousand will be spent on the purchase of sterilizers.
For about the same money, you can buy equipment for the production of canned fish. Additional equipment for slicing fish preserves costs approximately 700-800 thousand rubles. In addition, the production of caps will “eat up” 100-150 thousand rubles. It is more profitable to produce them ourselves, since the quality of third-party products is often very poor.
The finished line for the production of canned meat is already estimated at 10 million, and multifunctional Western machines are sold at all for 50 million or more. So to say something specific in terms of costs will not work, because it all depends solely on the direction of your activity. So before you start your own production, you need to very carefully approach planning issues.
SES requirements
As you might guess, they are quite serious. Start with the staff. Firstly, each employee must have a properly filled health book with tolerances for the production of food products.
Secondly, each of them must undergo a medical commission for workers in the processing industry in a timely manner. All employees should have overalls and shoes. Specialists can work only with gloves on.
As for the canned food workshop itself, first of all, it should be located at a distance of at least 500 meters from the nearest residential building. The building must have a water supply, as well as be connected to the sewer system. In addition, you need to equip a convenient entrance to the production facilities, arrange regular waste collection. In the summer, they must be cleaned at least once a day.
Keep in mind that any food technology (canning is not an exception) provides for daily disinfection of all work surfaces, so the enterprise should have both a stock of disinfectants and storage tanks for ready-made solutions.
Walls and floors are tiled in order to make these surfaces easier to disinfect.Each batch of raw materials and finished product must have all the necessary certificates of conformity.
