`Chapter 1

1.0 Introduction Milling is a common process that is done in the food industry and one of the main companies that does it in Zimbabwe its Blue Ribbon. There are two main types of corn milling namely wet milling and dry-milling. According to Kelly S (2001), wet milling is a process in which feed material is steeped in water, with or without sulphur dioxide, to soften the seed kernel in order to help separate the kernels various components while dry milling is a process in which the feed material. (continue with the things that you need to deal with in other it is just general literature review) 1.1Background Blue Ribbon is a company that is widely known in Zimbabwe and it was founded in 1978 the companys prime raw materials are maize and wheat. It has two main products, Ngwerewere and Chibataura. For every production process a by-product in the form of corn offals is produced and it is sold as stock feed. Corn offals are a mixture of corn germ and bran. Blue Ribbon operates at 24hours a day and the production ratio of the company follows the ratio of 4.5:3.5:2 for Ngwerewere, Chibataura and offals respectively. Blue Ribbon processes 5 040 tonnes per week and of the processed weekly batch 1008 tonnes are for offals. Offals are vulnerable to rancidity and because of that offals cannot be ground to be part of the mealie meal. According to Labuza et al (2002) this case of rancidity is due to high oil content that is found in the germ of the corn. 1.2Statement of the problem Changes in the economic status and in the cases of high drought rate in Zimbabwe have made such companies as Blue ribbon and Grain marketing board (GMB) to starve. Over the years Zimbabwe has been totally depending on neighboring countries for resources and food. Currently most of the maize corn that is being processed is imported mainly from Zambia because of such a scenario it is very important for Zimbabwean grain processing companies to have a way of maximizing on their production rate and as well as bring aid to the boosting of the countrys economy. Survival is what the industry needs and if Blue Ribbon is operating at this particular rate of no maximization of the profits and opportunities then the industry is likely to

suffer a deficiency in the long run. Blue Ribbon does not have a constant supply of raw materials and because of such a condition the full capitalization is greatly deprived. 1.3 Justification The offals sales $120.00 per tonne which means for each particular week the company benefits a total amount of $120,960.00 and this amount seems like a significantly huge return to the company. Breaking the amount per unit, each 50kg of offals costs $6.00 and by evaluation this amount is not proportional, therefore an alternative product other than offals is great needed. This product must be of great help to the company and it must boost the company economic status. An offal based product in the form of offal protein isolate would be a better edge to the company, since the companys production returns based on offals is 5%. Such a percentage does not favor capitalization to Blue Ribbon especially in times of maize corn shortages. 1.4 Aim To investigate the constituents of corn offals and to design the manufacturing process of an offal based product 1.5 Objectives To increase production returns of waste products from 5% to 15% at Blue Ribbon. To determine the constituents of corn offals with high preference on protein content To design the manufacturing process of an offal based product

1.6 Benefits To the researcher - It was to help the designer to partially fulfill his Bachelor of Technology degree in Food Processing Technology. The project also assisted the designer to gain valuable knowledge and experience in the industry especially on the subject under studied To academia It was a way of opening an avenue for further research and improvements to this current research. To the company The project was to assist Blue Ribbon in meeting the current market demands and at the same time increasing its production returns.

1.7 Delimitations The project was limited to fat, moisture and protein tests on the corn offals and not on corn variety evaluation. Focus was mainly on the product design process and the costs of scaling up were not included.