The rapid development of puffing technology and the need for further exploration of equipment market

2024-01-08

In China's snack market, puffed foods occupy half of the market, including various staple foods, pastries, snacks, and so on. Moreover, with changes in consumer demand, the puffed food industry is tending towards leisure and diversification. At the same time, with the development of puffing technology, the variety of puffed food products has also been further enriched.

It is reported that puffed food is the third largest category in the domestic snack market, accounting for 10% of the market share. From the composite growth rate of major snack categories from 2015 to 2020, the growth rate of puffed food is 16.6%, which is a very fast growth rate. Thisnot only due to the expansion of market demand, but also to the development of food puffing technology.

Nowadays, extrusion puffing equipment is widely used in puffed food production lines. Squeezing and puffing equipment is a new type of processing equipment that integrates mixing, stirring, crushing, heating, cooking, sterilization, puffing, and shaping, and can achieve a series of simultaneous and continuous operations of units. At present, the extrusion equipment on the market mainly includes single screw extruder, double screw extruder, multi screw extruder, etc. Among them, the market application prospects of double screw extrusion equipment are good.

In addition to extrusion puffing, baking puffing and microwave puffing are also applied in the production process of puffed foods. Baking puffing refers to the use of air as a heat exchange medium to gelatinize the starch, denature the protein, and turn water into steam in heated food, thereby ripening the food and increasing its volume. Microwave puffing is the use of the characteristics of microwave heating (internal heating) to absorb heat and vaporize the moisture in the material, thereby ripening the food and increasing its volume.

In recent years, with the expansion of the puffed food industry, the market space for puffing equipment has been further expanded. The total investment of the oat food industrialization project of a certain food company in Guilin, Guangxi is 266.48 million yuan. The project has a construction period of three years, forming an annual production capacity of 16000 tons of oatmeal and staple oat food, 20.8 million bags (strips) of leisure oat food, and 72 million bottles of oat beverage. This includes extrusion and puffing production lines, optimizing the company's product structure, and catering to market consumption upgrading needs.

Guangdong Food Co., Ltd. also entered the puffed snack food market last year. It is understood that the company has been upgrading its production line automation level in recent years to improve production efficiency. We plan to invest 434 million yuan in the construction of a modern puffed food production line project, and it is expected to achieve an annual sales revenue of 500 million yuan after reaching production capacity.

A food company located in Jiangsu also invested in the renovation of its production line this year. It is reported that the enterprise plans to build a puffed soybean and supporting facilities production line project, with an annual production capacity of 200000 tons of puffed soybean production line. After completion, it can form a production capacity of 4.32 million tons (annual transportation capacity); Currently, a total of 4 puffed soybean production lines have been built, and the number of production equipment has changed. The production capacity remains unchanged at 200000 tons per year.

There is a significant gap between the per capita consumption and the average level in China, which indicates that there is development space in the puffed food market and the market space needs to be further explored. This also indicates that the ceiling of the domestic puffing equipment manufacturing industry is far from reaching its peak. When designing equipment, puffing equipment manufacturers should not only improve the technology of individual equipment, but also start from the systematization and coordination of the entire production line, bringing more choices for production enterprises and higher quality.

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