The most important parameter for production and quality determination in feed factory is traceability. In order to ensure full traceability, written registration systems must be in place. In case of recalling a product due to a problem, traceability is very important to find the source of problem quickly and effectively.
Ertuğrul YILMAZ
Veterinarian
The word ‘process’ that entered into our everyday language recently has become more meaningful in the food chain from field to table. This word had a broad repercussion in full sense together with Good Manufacturing Practices and Feed Hygiene Guide for the Feed Sector released in 2014. Food should come to mind when feed is mentioned. That’s why there are series of process chains from the production of feed to its delivery. The aim of feed production process is to produce the compound feed under controlled conditions.
In the feed facilities, these processes should be created and registered. That’s why it is required to determine the hazard analysis and critical control points and to create the chain of processes. In order to apply these processes and take under control, it is required to create the Feed Security and Management System Team having at least five members. Through an in house correspondence form, this team should select a leader. This team should control each other through in house supervision annually. The results of this supervision should be registered to the internal audit result report, and departments’ problems and mistakes of the enterprise can be solved and taken under control. Problems have been tried to be solved through registering these discrepancies to the internal supervision discrepancy report. Thus, the first stage of the feed safety and management system are created.
Following this stage, the second step is to prepare the workflow diagram and assignment divisions. Critical control points, operational prerequisite verification plans and prerequisite verification plans must be created on the workflow diagram. While deciding on the critical control points, indispensable departments for the feed facility and critical limits of these departments should be taken into consideration and these limits should be registered in every batch. There should be at least four critical points. These points are spots in which hazards can be removed or can be kept at an acceptable level, and in the case of failure hazard can be taken under control where there is no operation or procedure. Determining whether the control points are "critical" can be done using a decision tree. In a feed facility, the mycotoxin control of raw material and the mycotoxin control of the compound feed should be in the critical control points. In a feed facility, particularly storage conditions are the most risky stages. Silos must be cleared against fungi and insects at the end of each raw material storage, and ventilated for a certain period of time. In all storage conditions, ambient temperature should be less than 18 centigrade degree, silos are sealed against any water and oxygen entrance and there should be an upper limit. These are ideal conditions for storage facility. Deciding on upper limit at silos is rarely known, but it is a detail which can cause huge mistakes. There can be transpiration among raw materials which are in contract with the upper part of the silos; thus, mycotoxin production starting in the upper part of the silo can be spread to other parts. The packaged compound feed should not be in contact with the walls, and they should be packed over a wooden bar and should be protected against moisture migration. That’s why there should be parameters at entry control of raw material and the final product compound feed, and they should be taken under control with forms (Table 1). By this way, full traceability can be established, and a product can be recalled in case of a problem. Another critical control point is the steam temperature of the steam which is directed to powder feed at pellet presser. The temperature of the pellet presser removes some microbial agents and enables the powder feed to take the shape of appropriate pellet form. Pre-requirement verification plans, hazard analysis and critical control points’ system are the basic conditions. Cleaning programs and hygiene inspections, operating workflow procedures and instructions are the primary prerequisites for feed mills.
The most important parameter for production and quality determination in feed factory is traceability. In order to ensure full traceability, written registration systems must be in place. In these registration systems, suppliers, lot numbers, analysis results of raw materials that are supplied to the business and the kind of operation the raw material were subjected to -if any- should be registered. In addition to this, material input numbers must be provided to ensure the traceability of packaging materials and every raw material entered. After raw materials and other feed additives have been converted into feed, label information on the product must be complete and clear. In case of recalling a product due to a problem, traceability is very important to find the source of problem quickly and effectively (Table 2). Therefore; physical, chemical and biological analyses of the raw materials are required. Samples should also be taken from compound feed produced in the same way.
In the feed mills, the process consists of all stages starting with acceptance of the raw material to delivering the mixed feed (product) to the consumer. After the raw material acceptance process is carried out, the raw materials are transported to the silo or other storage locations for feed in the automation system. The formulation prepared by the expert beforehand in the ration program is transferred to the automation and the production is started in full sense. Every product has its own code. The product with this code goes through dosing, micro dosing, crushing-milling, mixing, and molasses-oil supplement sections and enters into the pellet presser to turn it into the pellet form.
It is necessary to control the dusts that can occur in all stages from the intake of raw materials to the packing of the feed. The reason for this is the dust explosions that have occurred in China Harbin textile factory, Texas wheat silos, Norwegian fish meal factory. In order to eliminate this problem and use the dust in the production process, dust collection and control systems must be established and maintained in certain periods. In addition to the hazards the dust can create, metal, stone and foreign substances cause failure at the production process of the facility. Thus; magnets, metal detectors, sieves, sorters and sensors are used. Recently, apart from these hazards, trucks and their drivers are added to the hazard list. The contamination of hazardous substance, which was delivered previously, to feed is another source of concern.
Calibration of machines and equipment that are used in efficient processing of processes must be done with certain periods. Machine maintenance plans must be established for all machinery and equipment in the plant. The mill, the steam boiler, the bucket elevators, the chain conveyors, the spiral conveyors, the banded conveyors, the pneumatic conveyors, the mixers, the pellet press discs and the rollers are some of them (Table 3).
Points to be paid attention at the mixing process are to determine the mixing duration depending on the type of feed and the specification of raw materials used. If a homogeneous mixture cannot be achieved, it means that the feed formulation was not properly carried out, and there will be problems with the quality of the product. Homogeneity test is a test made by determining the trace element. The sample to be taken from the homogeneity test is made by taking at least eight samples from the lot at regular intervals near the discharge of the mixer and these samples are put into numbered containers in order. Variance coefficients are formed in the obtained results.
The target variation coefficient is less than 10 percent. In the figures above 10 percent, a form of corrective-preventive action should be prepared and applied where the mixer cleaning, erosion and mixing times are observed. For this reason, the homogeneity test should be done at least every 6 months.
Points to be paid attention to the feed arrived in the pellet presser are conditioner, dies and maintenance of dies, roll settings, steam temperature and pressure. In order to have an uniformed pellet feed and prevent the pellet structure from getting dusty, it is necessary to know the pelletization coefficients of the raw materials used in the process. Besides, recently, there are machinery and equipment that measure the pellet durability at specific periods in the feed farms. Steam which was applied at the pellet presser process conditioner increases the slipperiness of feed and decreases the friction which reveals the substances that may be pellet-binding in the structure of the raw materials (like wheat gluten). The steam applied to powder feed in the pellet feed production should be applied so that the powder feed does not have any dry spots. Generally, in feeds containing high starch, higher amounts of steam must be applied in order to achieve the desired 80-88 degree temperature during pelleting. This is because starch gelatinization on the outer surface of feed particles negatively affects the formation of intra-particulate bonds necessary for durable pellets. For this reason, the duration of compound feed staying in condition, steam pressure and temperature are important. The duration of the powder feed staying in conditioner is at least 30 seconds. This can take up to 4-5 minutes. This time varies depending on the starch content, the amount of protein, the amount of vitamin-mineral added and the amount of added oil. It has been reported that a pressure of around 241-276 kPa is suitable for producing pellets, which, if applied at low pressure, will increase the accumulation of water in milled feedstocks and cause clogging in the mill.
In the cooling system process, the hot food is dried by the help of air movement in the cooler and the temperature is reduced. The feed which is not effectively reduced in temperature in the cooler section may be deteriorated in a short time and may not be in the desired pellet size and diameter. Rapid cooling of the pellets in the cooler causes more water and temperature to be lost from the pellet surface, causing more water to remain inside the pellet and higher temperature. Water inside the pellet later can cause capillary cracks at the pellet surface.
The most important function required in the bagging process can be listed as speed, precision, low failure frequency and easy usage. The number of bags and sensitivity levels packed in a minute in the bagging system are the factors that directly affect production.
With all these production processes,
- We aim to provide to targeted animals
- the feedstuff, which was prepared in ration program targeted animals need in line with their required nutrients
- after preparing the formulation with acceptable variations at the production stage.
It is necessary to check the processes to ensure these steps.
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