As the summer approaches and awareness of the ill-effects of carbonated, sugar drinks such as the pepsi and coke is increasing, consumers are turning to health drinks such as tender coconut water and diluted curd. That provides an entrepreneur with another business opportunity.
The National Dairy Research Institute, part of the research institutions under the government-owned Indian Council for Agricultural Research, has invented a machine that can make and pack dahi (curd).
It is an endo-exo automated thermal unit; there is no manual intervention in the whole process of dahi making. In the developed endo-exo cabinet, instead of two separate units, one for incubation and second for cooling storage, where higher initial cost, time and labour are involved (resulting in higher production cost), there is a single compact unit for the complete process of dahi making i.e. incubation in controlled condition and faster cooling thereafter. It consists of two automatic process control viz. Timer based and pH level based. A 16-Channel Data Logger is attached to record and analyze the temperature data of the entire processing of incubation to cooling. The design is based on engineering calculations for fluid flow, heat transfer and refrigeration, the assembly of instrument panel and all the automation control system for providing controlled processing environment.
This fully automatic and smart operation included loading the sealed cups filled with inoculated cups, switching on the machine and taking out good quality ready to consume cooled Dahi Cups. There is saving of time, energy and labor, hence the overall production cost. Developed technology could be applicable and adaptable for small to medium and medium to larger scale and useful to small dairy processors with the production capacity of 1000 cups (200 ml) of Dahi per day.
NDRI is commercializing this machine for Rs 4.00 Lakhs (+18% GST) with 2% royalty; and Rs.6.00 Lakhs (+18% GST) without royalty for 10 years non-exclusive term.
For further details, contact:
DR. A.K. DANG, PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST & PUBLIC RELATION OFFICER
E-mail: ajay.dang@icar.gov.in
Phone: +91-184-2259084 (O) /+91-9416783838
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