Food Product Development as a Food Factor: lesson learned from the Development of Corn Noodle Processing Technology

Abstract

This paper presents our experience in conducting research and development (R&D) of corn noodles. The R&D process covered the steps of product concept generation, formulation and processing development to obtain noodle prototype, process scaling up and commercialization . A lot of factors to be considered in R&D process of corn noodles, such as consumer perception and expectation, characteristics and availability of raw materials, processing condition and steps, existing noodle technology for scaling up and technology commercialization . It is known that wheat noodle has become a part of Indonesian diet, which results in a high consumption of wheat four. Corn flour is potentially used as an alternative raw material in the production of corn noodle. However, the low content and different characteristics of gluten protein in corn flour caused the difficulties to produce elastic corn dough and noodle. Hence, the processing technology of corn noodle from 100% corn flour could not adopt the existing processing technology of sheeted wheat noodle. The formation of elastic and compact dough could be reached by gelatinized (steamed) partially the formulated corn flour before dough forming, sheeting and slitting. To completely cook the corn noodles, the wet corn noodle is then steamed before drying. Extrusion technology is another promising technology to produce 100% corn noodle. The formulated corn flour is initially steamed to gelatinize partially the corn flour, and then extruded by multi-function noodle machine, steamed and dried . Corn flour could also be used as substitute flour up to 25% in the production of sheeted wheat noodle without modifying the sheet processing technology