Pre-Cooked Samp

Objective

Samp is a popular African dish consisting of dried and crushed corn kernels also is a tasty and flavourful, comforting and filling dish. Since it requires only a handful of ingredients, it is affordable and accessible to all households. The only drawback of samp is the long cooking time. In a modern world when people are busy at work and want to spend their spare time on leisure activities instead of cooking for hours, samp is losing ground as an everyday staple food alternative to more convenient dining options. Due to expected wide marketing capacity of Samp, a technology for producing convenient “ready-to-heat” canned samp has been developed

TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION

The newly developed samp product can be stored for a long time (years) at ambient temperatures, can be transported easily and is simply heated for a few minutes in a casserole, mixed with other ingredients of choice, and is ready to serve. Two different technologies had been used for achieving ready to eat Samp food for consumers. The most effective way was the Retort system that was to shake the product back and forth at a speed of 80 strokes per minute during heating process. Moreover, the technology is suitable for large-size production due to its high capacity. In this way samp and water was mixed during the sterilization process, resulting in a homogenous well distributed product in the industrial aluminium cans. The other effective alternative was sterilisation by microwaves. As for the shaking process an overpressure microwave autoclave was used in a sealed retort, but this time samp and water was premixed before dosing in plastic containers. The heating time needed was even shorter than for the shaking process but resulted in a less homogeneous product due to fewer mixing opportunities in the relevant system.

Compared to traditional static retorting, both novel technologies save water and time and there is a potential to reduce the energy consumption as well. It is therefore a potential for sustainable mass-production of nutritious samp that is affordable to low-income households. Another possible application would be as emergency supplies. The prototype has similar taste, texture and colour as traditionally prepared samp, and it is free of dangerous microorganisms due to sterilization processing. Additionally, the corn kernels, often perceived as a low value side stream by the corn processing industry, is utilized and added value.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Name: Trond Løvdal

Address: Nofima AS, Department of Processing Technology, PO Box 327, N-4002 Stavanger,

Email: trond.lovdal@nofima.no

Telephone: +47 91312335

Type  of partner: Research Institute

Name of Institution: Nofima