How are chips made?
Chips have been around for a very long time. They have been around for over 150 years. This was the first time this product was produced in the USA. As legend has it, railroad magnate Vanderbilt once dined in an American restaurant. He didn't like the French fries, the restaurant's specialty. He returned it to the chef and stated that the potatoes were very thick. The cook, in response, made fun of the tycoon and cut the vegetable into the thinnest slices. After frying them in oil, he served the dish to the client. His surprise knew no bounds when the visitor was delighted after trying the slices. The dish was added to the restaurant menu and called "chips." Since 1938, the production of chips has been established. Today we'll talk about how Lay's chips are made.
initial stage
At the Frito Lay plant that makes Lay's chips, 9 trucks are unloaded every day. Each of them contains 20 tons of potatoes. It passes along a conveyor belt and enters the washing machine. Cleaning is done with recirculated water. There are only three such sinks in our world. The entire washing process takes place in a closed container, so it is impossible to film it. Thoroughly washed potatoes are placed in bins for temporary storage. It lies in these special containers until it is needed in production. Peculiarities:
- Not every potato variety is suitable for making chips. There are special varieties of chips that contain much more starch.
- Every factory employee must have a medical record. They all undergo periodic medical examinations, and before starting work in the workshop, they wash their hands every time.
How chips are made: peeling and cutting
Abrasive drums with periodic action clean the tubers. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, and after that it is unloaded into the drum. Potatoes are cut mechanically. This is facilitated by the rotation of the cone-shaped bottom of the drum. The slicing machine has 16 sharp blades. They cut the tubers into slices, the thickness of which does not exceed two millimeters.
Roasting
The chopped potatoes go into the frying bath. After this bath, the slices become base chips. The equipment used for roasting has no analogues throughout the world.
All thin slices are fried in an oil bath for three minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. For frying, not only high-quality potatoes are used, but also high-quality vegetable oil. The final product has 25% less saturated fat, due to the fact that the plant has developed a special recipe from a mixture of several vegetable oils, including high-oleic oil. Not a day goes by at the plant without checking product quality. Everything is subject to inspection: basic chips, those that just came out of the oven, and those that are already packaged.
How to prepare chips: spices and packaging
Special flavoring and aromatic additives are added to fried chips. The most basic of them is salt. Chips of three different flavors can go along one line. The chips pass through three conveyors and are packaged. They are distributed according to tastes and weighed. Weighing machines determine the weight of several portions at once. They are so accurate that they can easily calculate the weight of 28 grams, i.e. one pack of chips.
Each portion undergoes mandatory control. It is checked for the presence of foreign impurities. A metal detector is used for this. At this time, the packaging machine prepares a foil packaging bag, where the clean portion falls. Each package contains food grade nitrogen to ensure the desired shelf life of the product. All equipment works very quickly and allows you to produce 80 bags of chips per minute.
The topic of today's report is the PepsiCo plant for the production of Lay's potato chips, which recently opened in the city of Azov, Rostov region. In addition, the plant produces Khrusteam crackers. Let's walk sequentially along the entire production line and look at it in detail.
It is believed that chips originated more than 150 years ago in the United States. Legend has it that in one of the elite American restaurants, a client (railroad magnate Vanderbilt) did not like the restaurant's signature dish, “french fries,” and he returned them to the kitchen, claiming that the potatoes were too thick. The restaurant chef decided to play a trick on the client and cut the potatoes into the thinnest slices and fried them in oil and served them to the table. Surprisingly, the client especially liked the dish, and since then a new dish has appeared on the restaurant menu - chips.
Lay's chips have been produced since 1938. Today, Frito Lay is one of the leading producers of salty snacks both in the world and in Russia. Deliveries of Lay’s chips to Russia began in the mid-90s, and in 2002 the first Frito Lay plant was opened in Kashira, Moscow Region.
Unloading, washing and temporary storage of potatoes
Nine 20-ton trucks with potatoes are unloaded here every day. The potatoes are transported along a conveyor belt to a washing machine, where recirculated water is used to clean them. There are three such automatic car washes in the world. It is physically impossible to remove the washing process; everything happens in a closed container. After washing, the potatoes are sent for temporary storage to bins - special containers, from where they are supplied to production as needed.
Peeling, sorting and cutting potatoes
Before the potato tubers enter a special slicing machine, inspectors visually inspect the tubers moving along the belt and, if necessary, remove visible defects.
By the way: Not all potatoes are suitable for making chips. There are so-called chip potato varieties that have a high starch content.
All employees undergo periodic medical examinations and have medical records; this is done to ensure that a sick person does not end up at work. In addition, before entering the workshop, everyone must wash their hands.
Potatoes are peeled in batch abrasive drums. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, after which it is unloaded into the drum.
Direct cutting occurs mechanically due to the rotation of the cone-shaped bottom of the drum. Inside the cutting machine are eight pairs of extremely sharp blades that cut the tuber into thin slices. The thickness of each slice is less than two millimeters.
Roasting
After cutting, the potato slices enter the very heart of the chip production line - the frying bath for frying the slices and producing base chips. This equipment, which has no analogues, was created specifically for the PepsiCo plant and cannot be shown.
Thinly sliced potato slices are placed in an oil bath in which they are fried for three minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. High-quality oil, like high-quality potatoes, is the basis for the taste of chips.
The plant has improved the recipe using a special blend of vegetable oils, including locally produced high-olitic sunflower oil, which reduces the saturated fat content in the final product by 25%.
Product quality checks are carried out daily at the plant. They check both basic chips just out of the oven and fully packaged bags.
Adding spices
At this stage, special aromatic and flavoring additives are added to the fried potato chips, the basis of which is salt.
Three flavors can be produced on the line at the same time.
Package
By the way: The plant is designed to produce 50 thousand tons of finished products per year. Some fantastic figure, in my opinion.
Three conveyors transport the finished chips to packaging. First, distribution and weighing occurs.
By the way: Please note that there are very few workers along the entire length of the line. It uses modern equipment that operates in a fully automated mode. In addition, it is important that as few people as possible come into contact with the finished product.
Weighing machines weigh multiple portions at a time and calculate the best weight combination that has the most accurate weight to match the standard and the stated weight on the package.
If you consider that the net weight of one pack is 28 grams, you can imagine the precision of the equipment settings.
The weighed portion is unloaded onto the packaging line.
The portion is checked for the presence of foreign impurities (metal detector) and ends up in a bag, which by this time has been prepared by a packaging machine from packaging materials (foil). Before sealing the seam, food grade nitrogen is supplied to the bag, which ensures the required shelf life of the product. Weighing and packaging equipment operates synchronously, at speeds of up to 80 bags per minute.
The packaged bag of chips is delivered to operators, who manually place the bags into cardboard boxes.
Boxes of chips are stacked on pallets and transported to the warehouse.
In parallel there is a line for the production of crackers
A mixture of flour and water is fed into the extruder, heated and thoroughly mixed. The crackers come out of the extruder in the form of ropes, which are cut to size by rotating knives.
The next step is to dry the crackers in the oven and place them in the seasoning area.
The packaging line is identical to the one used to produce chips.
Weighing takes place in a similar weighing machine, which forms several portions and selects the best combination for sealing in a bag.
Ready crackers.
The productivity of one line is 12 tons of finished products per day.
Workers are prohibited from wearing watches and jewelry, manicures and false nails are prohibited, and their hair must be covered with a net so that nothing gets onto the conveyor.
In addition to the taste and visual compliance of the slices with accepted standards, the quality of the packaging is checked here. The seam should be smooth and the pack should open in one movement exactly along the seam, without tears.
Factory team. By the way, the production line operates around the clock in three shifts.
Exterior of the plant.
Bon appetit!
Photos
Yasya Vogelhardt
The PepsiCo corporation catalog includes about 40 different brands: drinks (Ya, Lipton Ice Tea, Aqua Minerale, Pepsi, J7, Mirinda), dairy products (Vesely Milkman, Chudo, Imunele), baby food (“Zdrivers”, “Agusha”) and more. At the Frito Lay plant in Kashira near Moscow, the international giant produces snacks - Lay’s and Cheetos chips, Khrusteam crackers (another snack plant is located in Azov). A year ago, The Village visited PepsiCo's production facility near Moscow and saw... This time we went to the Frito Lay factory to learn how chips are made.
Chips production
The basis of the chips is good potatoes. According to the company's calculations, four kilograms of potatoes yield a kilogram of chips. The plant purchases potatoes mainly from Russian suppliers from the Moscow and Tula regions. Employees say that not every potato variety is suitable for making chips. The fruits must be dense in structure and contain a minimum amount of sugar; there are only seven such varieties.
Potatoes enter production in trucks that can transport up to 20 tons of product at a time. Having arrived at the plant, the machine pours the potatoes into a receiving container. An employee inspects the potatoes to see if they are suitable for chips. If the tubers have a lot of green or black spots, such a batch may be sent back to the supplier.
Frito Lay plant
Snack manufacturer
LOCATION:
Kashira, Moscow region
OPENING DATE: 2002
EMPLOYEES: 1,000 people
PLANT AREA: 25 hectares
lays.ru
Potatoes are transported through a conveyor system into bin bins, where the first stage of sorting occurs - cleaning of sprouts and soil. A potato tuber must be from four to nine centimeters in diameter, so very small tubers are rejected and the machine throws them into a separate bag. There are only eight such bins at the plant; each of them can hold 40 tons of potatoes, which are completely processed in four hours.
From the bins, the potatoes go to the next section, where the potatoes are washed and separated from foreign contaminants, stones and chips. Cleaning takes place in a large container - a drum is installed inside it, onto which clean water flows using nozzles. Then they get rid of the peel using a round-shaped device: once inside it, the tubers rotate around the rough walls, and the peel is erased. This happens in just 90 seconds.
After this, the potatoes are washed again in special baths to avoid the slightest particles of peel getting in after peeling. Then they are sorted by size, and especially large tubers are taken to a grader - in which the potatoes are cut into several pieces using round knives. Particularly large potatoes are then cut in half. Sorted tubers go to the inspection table - employees monitor the quality of the product, manually cut pieces missed by the machine or throw away unsuitable ones.
After sorting, the potatoes go through a conveyor system to the next section - a slicer, which cuts the tubers into thin slices: the permissible thickness of one slice is no more than 1.3 millimeters. The slicer has five “heads”, inside of which there are drums with knives - slicers. To prepare corrugated chips, change the knives to wavy ones. Then the slices are moved by a stream of water to the quick washing stage, where they are washed again - this procedure is necessary in order to get rid of excess starch. The starched water goes to a special installation, where the liquid is evaporated, obtaining dry starch. His company collects and sells.
Finally, the slices enter the frying stage, which occurs in a closed container at a temperature of 180 degrees. The chips are in the fryer for only three minutes - during this time, each slice is immersed in a hot mixture of vegetable oils until cooked. At the exit of the machine there are moisture meters that check whether the potatoes are fried enough. If suddenly the potatoes turn out to be raw and poorly fried, the system will signal the operator, and he will be forced to dispose of the batch. The next stage of testing is optical sorting, during which chips with defects are “shot” using nozzles. Only after this is the product sent to the spice application area.
The chips go into a large rotating drum, inside of which seasonings are sprayed. Because the slices are buttery, the seasoning spreads well and sticks to each piece. Herbs (dried parsley, onion or dill), spices, flavorings and salt are used as seasonings in production. All these ingredients are mainly purchased in Russia; they arrive on the conveyor in mixed form. The company says that for some flavors - for example, garlic, tomato and paprika - a powder consisting of chopped vegetables is applied to the chips. Monosodium glutamate and flavorings are also used to enhance the taste. The company clarifies that all flavors are food grade and identical to natural products. “All this is indicated in the composition on the pack,” the employees add.
At the same time, eight different flavors of chips can be made in production. Some flavors are produced only for Russia - for example, “Porcini mushrooms with sour cream”, “Slightly salted cucumbers” and “Crab”. For several years now, the most popular flavor among Russians has been “Young green onions.”
The process of making chips ends when seasoning is applied. The slices first go to a weighing dispenser, and then the mass is fed into an open bag that looks like a sleeve. The former fills the bag with nitrogen and seals it: this way the product can be stored for a long time and not spoil. The cooking time for one batch of chips is just under an hour. After packaging, the packages are put into boxes and sent to a warehouse, from where they are delivered to stores in Russia and the CIS countries.
Chips are a high-quality product loved by millions, made from fresh potatoes in the form of the thinnest slices, plates or straws.
Chips are a product that is deep fried and ready to eat. They are used as a dry breakfast, a side dish for fish and meat dishes, or a snack for various drinks. Thick dip sauce goes well with chips.
The creator of modern chips is considered to be George Crum, a chef from the United States who, according to legend, came up with a recipe for French fries back in August 1853. Since then, chips have changed significantly, acquiring new shapes and tastes, but the only correct process for their preparation has remained unchanged for many years.
What are chips made from?
Chips are prepared only from fresh potatoes, otherwise unappetizing dark spots will form on the slices. At the same time, the ratio of potatoes before cooking and at the exit is four kg to 1 kg. Less commonly, other root vegetables fried in oil are used as a base for chips. To make chips, only high-quality potatoes of a certain variety are selected. These potatoes are firm in texture and contain a minimum of sugar. About seven varieties of potatoes with a high starch content are used in the production of chips, including: Lady Rosetta, Hermes and Saturn.
As for the product made from a thin layer of dried mashed potatoes, it should rather be called potato waffles.
Chips production stages
The technological process for the production of chips consists of the following production stages:
- unloading and preparation of raw materials;
- washing and temporary storage of potatoes;
- cleaning, sorting and cutting potatoes;
- roasting;
- adding spices;
- package.
Let's look at each of these stages in more detail.
Unloading and preparation of raw materials
Potatoes are delivered to production by trucks with a capacity of up to 20 tons each. The raw materials unloaded into the receiving container are carefully inspected by the company’s employees, checking their suitability for making chips. If green or dark spots are detected on root crops, the goods are sent back to the supplier.
The inspected potatoes are conveyed along a conveyor belt into so-called bins, which can hold approximately 40 tons of potatoes. Here its primary sorting takes place, cleaning it from greens and sprouts. The criterion for sorting potato tubers is a diameter of four to nine centimeters. Small root crops are deposited separately as rejects. Processing potatoes in bins lasts on average about 4 hours.
Washing and temporary storage of potatoes
At the next stage, the potatoes are separated from foreign debris (chips, stones) and washed. Potato tubers can be washed in a large container with a drum inside. The supply of clean water pressure is established through the nozzles.
Peeling, sorting and cutting potatoes
Peeling potatoes is also an automated process: the peel of the root crop is actually rubbed off against the abrasive walls of a special device in about 90 seconds. This potato peeler can peel about 5 tons of potatoes in just 1 hour.
In order to avoid the ingress of potato peel residues after peeling, the potatoes are washed again. Next, it is sorted by size, as a result of which the largest tubers will be cut into pieces by a grader (a device with built-in large knives). The quality of the sorted product is monitored by employees at the inspection table. Here, the potatoes are corrected for omissions in automatic slicing and parts unsuitable for making chips are removed.
The slicer cuts the potatoes selected by experts into the thinnest slices at the next stage. The permissible slice thickness does not exceed 1.3 millimeters. The slicer design includes “heads” with drums and knives (slicers) inside. No less popular today are “wavy” (corrugated) chips. To prepare them, the knives in the slicer are changed. Under the influence of centrifugal force and sharp heat, the potatoes turn into slices. The root vegetable must be cut into approximately 36 pieces to make regular chips.
The finished slices are again moved by water flow into a tank of water for the washing stage. This step is necessary to remove excess starch from the potatoes. That same starch is then evaporated and sold after going through a special installation.
Roasting
Potato slices are dried under hot air and sent to the frying stage. The ovens and oil are heated to 190 degrees Celsius, so it only takes three minutes to fry the potatoes. When the chips leave the oven along the conveyor, excess oil flows into a special reservoir. If the potatoes are poorly fried, the moisture meter system gives a signal to the operator, who, in turn, sends the entire batch for disposal.
The fried slices are tested again, this time optically. Using nozzles, a high-quality product is sorted from chips with defects, and only after that they move on to the section for adding spices.
Adding spices
The chips are placed in a large drum filled with delicious seasonings. The seasoning perfectly coats each oiled potato slice. To prepare high-quality chips, manufacturers use only natural seasonings: onion, dill, parsley, etc. To create such unique tastes as tomato or garlic, powder made from dried vegetables is applied to the surface of the slices. All flavors used in the chips production process are natural.
Seasoning comes before the final step in chip production - packaging.
Package
Slices of fried potatoes are first weighed and dosed, and then poured into a special bag-sleeve. Before sealing the bag, nitrogen is poured into it, which allows the chips not to spoil and retain their taste much longer. Thus, a pack of chips under production conditions goes through all stages of preparation in about an hour. Bags of chips in boxes are placed in a warehouse, from where they are subsequently delivered to stores.
It should be noted that the production line is fully automated using the latest equipment. This allows you to minimize the contact of people with the finished product.
Thus, we tracked the chips production line from the delivery of raw materials to the placement of finished chips on store shelves and now you know how are chips made.
The topic of today's report is the PepsiCo plant for the production of Lay's potato chips, which recently opened in the city of Azov, Rostov region. In addition, the plant produces Khrusteam crackers. Let's walk sequentially along the entire production line and look at it in detail.
It is believed that chips originated more than 150 years ago in the United States. Legend has it that in one of the elite American restaurants, a client (railroad magnate Vanderbilt) did not like the restaurant's signature dish, “french fries,” and he returned them to the kitchen, claiming that the potatoes were too thick. The restaurant chef decided to play a trick on the client and cut the potatoes into the thinnest slices and fried them in oil and served them to the table. Surprisingly, the client especially liked the dish, and since then a new dish has appeared on the restaurant menu - chips.
Lay's chips have been produced since 1938. Today, Frito Lay is one of the leading producers of salty snacks both in the world and in Russia. Deliveries of Lay’s chips to Russia began in the mid-90s, and in 2002 the first Frito Lay plant was opened in Kashira, Moscow Region.
Unloading, washing and temporary storage of potatoes
2. Nine 20-ton trucks with potatoes are unloaded here every day. The potatoes are transported along a conveyor belt to a washing machine, where recirculated water is used to clean them. There are three such automatic car washes in the world. It is physically impossible to remove the washing process; everything happens in a closed container. After washing, the potatoes are sent for temporary storage to bins - special containers, from where they are supplied to production as needed. 
Peeling, sorting and cutting potatoes
3. Before the potato tubers enter a special slicing machine, inspectors visually inspect the tubers moving along the belt and, if necessary, remove visible defects. 
4. By the way: Not all potatoes are suitable for making chips. There are so-called chip potato varieties that have a high starch content.
5. All employees undergo periodic medical examinations and have medical records; this is done to ensure that a sick person does not end up at work. In addition, before entering the workshop, everyone must wash their hands. 
6. Potatoes are peeled in periodic abrasive drums. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, after which it is unloaded into the drum. 
7. Direct cutting occurs mechanically due to the rotation of the cone-shaped bottom of the drum. Inside the cutting machine are eight pairs of extremely sharp blades that cut the tuber into thin slices. The thickness of each slice is less than two millimeters. 
Roasting
8. After cutting, the potato slices enter the very “heart” of the chip production line - the frying bath for frying the slices and producing base chips. This equipment, which has no analogues, was created specifically for the PepsiCo plant and cannot be shown. 
9. Thinly sliced potato slices are placed in an oil bath, in which they are fried for three minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius. High-quality oil, like high-quality potatoes, is the basis for the taste of chips. 
10. The plant has improved the recipe using a special blend of vegetable oils, including locally produced high-oliline sunflower oil, which reduces the saturated fat content in the final product by 25%. 
11. Product quality checks are carried out daily at the plant. They check both basic chips just out of the oven and fully packaged bags. 
Adding spices
12. At this stage, special aromatic and flavoring additives are added to the fried potato chips, the basis of which is salt. 
13. Three flavors can be produced on the line at the same time. 
Package
14. By the way: The plant is designed to produce 50 thousand tons of finished products per year. Some fantastic figure, in my opinion.
15. Three conveyors transport ready-made chips to packaging. First, distribution and weighing occurs. 
16. By the way: Please note that there are very few workers along the entire length of the line. It uses modern equipment that operates in a fully automated mode. In addition, it is important that as few people as possible come into contact with the finished product.
17. Weighing machines weigh multiple portions simultaneously and calculate the best weight combination that has the most accurate weight to match the standard and the weight stated on the package. 
18. If you consider that the net weight of one pack is 28 grams, you can imagine the accuracy of the equipment settings. 
19. The weighed portion is unloaded onto the packaging line. 
20. The portion is checked for the presence of foreign impurities (metal detector) and ends up in a bag, which by this time has been prepared by a packaging machine from packaging materials (foil). Before sealing the seam, food grade nitrogen is supplied to the bag, which ensures the required shelf life of the product. Weighing and packaging equipment operates synchronously, at speeds of up to 80 bags per minute. 
21. The packaged bag of chips is delivered to operators who manually place the bags into cardboard boxes. 
22. Boxes of chips are stacked on pallets and transported to the warehouse. 
23. 
There is a line parallel to Production of crackers
24. A mixture of flour and water is fed into the extruder, heated and thoroughly mixed. The crackers come out of the extruder in the form of ropes, which are cut to size by rotating knives. 
25. The next step is to dry the crackers in the oven and place them on the seasoning area. 
26. The packaging line is identical to the one on which chips are produced. 
27. 
28. Weighing takes place in a similar weighing machine, which forms several portions and selects the best combination for sealing in a bag. 
29. Ready-made crackers. 
30. The productivity of one line is 12 tons of finished products per day. 
31. Workers are prohibited from wearing watches and jewelry, manicures and false nails are prohibited, and their hair must be covered with a net so that nothing gets onto the conveyor. 
32. In addition to the taste and visual compliance of the slices with accepted standards, the quality of the packaging is checked here. The seam should be smooth and the pack should open in one movement exactly along the seam, without tears. 
33. 
34. Factory staff. By the way, the production line operates around the clock in three shifts. 
35. 
36. Exterior of the plant. 
37. Bon appetit! 