How chips are made in a factory. Chips: composition, the most harmful chips and why they are harmful

Chips are often seen on supermarket shelves, and so many people buy them as a snack without thinking about what the product consists of and whether it is safe for health to eat. It is believed that chips are exclusively fried potato slices, but is it really so?

Compound

What is in the chips? If you pick up a package of an average price category in a supermarket, you can see the following composition: potatoes, vegetable oil, flavor and aroma enhancer, yeast, sugar, spices, stabilizer and dye. Manufacturers can also add flavorings, additives and powders, such as bacon or sour cream, to give the product a characteristic taste. However, along with traditional types of chips, you can also find those that should not be called chips, but a potato-wheat snack, since they contain up to 40% of the corresponding vegetable, and they are mostly made from flour and starch, which are otherwise called potato powder.

What are chips actually made of?

What are chips made from? Most often, to reduce the cost of the product, its basis is flour and soy starch, which is made from genetically modified soybeans. These ingredients are mixed and thin plates are made from them, which are then fried in boiling vegetable oil. At the same time, it should be noted that chips can also be made from potatoes, but this does not mean that it is useful, since in order to avoid damage to tubers by pests, only hemodified potatoes are used, which are stored for a long time and have the correct even shape. The harm of products with GMOs has been proven, they cause infertility and cancer.

Harmful additives in chips

Unfortunately, those people who believe that chips are not more harmful than ordinary potatoes will be greatly disappointed, as they contain a lot of additives that are detrimental to health.

What is in the chips? In addition to flavors, stabilizers and colors, it is monosodium glutamate, which makes the chips seem incredibly tasty. The main task of the additive is to stimulate the receptors so that the taste of food seems more saturated and bright. Therefore, if after the chips you eat ordinary meat, in which many spices are not added, it will seem fresh and unsalted.

Monosodium glutamate is a man-made additive, and therefore considered harmful to the body, because, by causing excitement in the brain, it is addictive (which is why consumers quickly get used to some type of product and give it preference). If a person often consumes products with monosodium glutamate, he may develop allergies, bronchial asthma and diseases of the digestive system (gastritis, ulcers, and the like).

Vegetable oil or hydrogenated fat?

What chips are made of, we have already found out. What are they fried on? According to the technology for making chips, you need to fry pieces of potatoes in vegetable oil. As you know, good quality sunflower seed oil is very expensive, therefore it is most often replaced with cheap analogues - hydrogenated fat, which does not burn during frying and is stored for a long time, which means it is more profitable for use in production.

Cheap fats do not contain those vitamins that are in vegetable oil, therefore they are absolutely useless, but at the same time they have a high calorie content, making chips a “cholesterol bomb”, which causes blockage of blood vessels. If they are eaten very often, diseases of the cardiovascular and digestive systems may appear. It is possible that cheap fats are one of the causes of cancer, because if you fry food for a long time in the same oil, it becomes a carcinogen, which is very toxic to the human body.

Chips "Lays"

This brand of chips is very popular among consumers and has an average cost. What is the composition According to the inscription on the package, they include potatoes, vegetable oil, flavor, flavor enhancer, citric acid, glucose, dye, spices and salt. For the preparation of snacks, not any potato is used, but only a separate variety of it - the so-called chips, which contains a lot of starch. It is cleaned, cut into pieces, and then immersed in a frying bath, in which the slices are fried in vegetable oil. After that, various spices are added to the Lays chips to give them a special aroma and taste. Based on the above, the basis of chips is potatoes, but still flour is added to them, in addition, it should be noted that they contain a lot of starch, which is transformed into glucose when it enters the body, therefore chips cannot be called a dietary product, taking into account also the fact that in 100 g of Leys chips - 510 kcal.

Chips: production

The production of chips takes place according to the following classical scheme. Since they are made from potatoes, this vegetable is first delivered to the plant, with individual varieties that are distinguished by a high content of starch. After it is thoroughly washed and cleaned, removing all the shortcomings of the tuber, the potatoes are sent to a special shredding drum, where the vegetable is finely chopped using an automatic mechanism with built-in knives with a sharp blade. After the potatoes are cut into thin slices, the thickness of which should not exceed two millimeters, the potatoes enter the frying bath, into which vegetable oil is preliminarily poured, and are fried at 250 degrees.

The production of chips is carefully checked at each stage so that the products meet all consumer qualities. After frying, various spices, flavors, salt, flavors and color and taste enhancers are added to the hot product. In some factories producing chips, the process of making them is slightly different, since not the potato itself is taken as the basis for making snacks, but a mixture of starches and flour. From them, blanks are prepared for chips, which are then fried with the addition of mixtures and other additives. The quality of vegetable oil determines how useful the product will be for human health, since cheap fats at high temperatures turn into carcinogens that cause cancer.

Chips calories

Chips are mainly flour, starch) and fats (vegetable oil, refined and deodorized fats), therefore they are far from being a dietary snack. What is the calorie content of chips? So, 100 g of the product contains about 517-538 kcal, depending on its type. At the same time, the chips contain 49.3 carbohydrates, 2.2 proteins and 37.6 fats. A standard pack of chips - 28 grams, it contains 142 kcal, which replaces a bowl of soup with meat or fried potatoes and a couple of slices of sausage.

Taste variety of chips

To date, many different flavors of chips have been invented, so even the most demanding consumer has something to choose from all their variety. So, the most common types of product are chips with the taste of mushrooms, ketchup, cheese and bacon. In addition, such flavors of chips as "Sour Cream and Herbs", "Green Onion" and "Red Caviar" are very popular. New items that are especially suitable for beer are chips with the taste of chicken wings, lightly salted cucumbers, jellied meat and horseradish, smoked cheese and crab. There are also original flavors, for example, chocolate and chili, mint lamb, pepperoni, fruits (orange, kiwi), Greek salad, balsamic vinegar, wasabi and the like. It should be noted that, of course, cheese or bacon are not added to potato chips, these are flavors and flavors that are identical to natural ones.

Are there potatoes in modern chips?

Unfortunately, potato chips are very rare today, since for the most part this vegetable has long been replaced by potato powder, or, in simple terms, flour (corn or wheat) and starch. What are the differences between the products and what harm does the reduction in the cost of production of chips bring to the consumer? Of course, there is nothing wrong with potatoes fried in high-quality oil. Yes, it is high-calorie, but it contains vitamins and nutrients, so it will not bring harm to the body.

However, this cannot be said about starch and flour, from which "potato" chips are made in cheap industries. It is their content in most products that is considered the main cause of obesity. With the accumulation of glucose in the liver, into which starch is converted, a person begins to recover greatly, which negatively affects his health. It is difficult for the consumer to distinguish whether potatoes have been replaced with potato powder or not, as the product contains a lot of monosodium glutamate and other flavorings. If you give a person a taste of chips for the first time, he will immediately feel that they have a lot of salt and spices that completely interrupt the taste of other ingredients. Doing this is not very cost-effective, and therefore unprofitable. Therefore, in reality, it is quite difficult to find potatoes in modern chips.

Now you know the composition of the chips. To use this product or not - the choice is yours!

This forty-five-minute film shows this process from the very beginning, when huge trucks bring freshly dug potatoes to unloading platforms, and ending with the packaging of finished products in brightly rustling bags.

people in progress

Only in the event of some kind of breakdown do people come into action who quickly fix everything and the process starts again. And the output is tons of all kinds of goodies. Watch the video "How chips are made at the factory" in high quality 720 HD. All materials of 2017 and 2018 are contained on Youtube.com and are available on our website without registration.

How are Lay's chips produced in Russian factories made? Find out below. Let's start with the fact that their production is set in such a way that it fully meets the technologies accepted as the norm in the West. Such snacks have been produced since 1938, and they began to be delivered to Russia in the 90s.

In the history of their creation lies the pride of one of the chefs. In one of the elite American restaurants, the visitor did not like the french fries, he said that he was cut into very thick slices and the offended cook prepared another dish for him. Specially cut the potatoes into very thin plates and fried them until crispy. The client happily ate this dish and it was included in the restaurant menu. The whole truth about the production of today's advertised chips.

How Leis chips are made

On the allotted plantations, a special variety of potatoes is grown for chips, which is why they cannot be prepared at home from ordinary potato tubers.

Cooking steps include:

1. Unloading and washing potatoes. The plant uses a closed container, from which washed vegetables are delivered to bins - special storage tanks.
2. Cleaning, sorting and cutting potatoes. First, the inspector checks the tape and eliminates visible defects on the raw material.
3. Potato peeling is carried out in special abrasive drums with millstones.
4. Special blades are installed in the bottoms of the drums; they rotate and cut the tubers of the required thickness.
5. Frying Lay's chips. Potato blanks enter the frying bath, the design of which was created specifically for the preparation of chips of this brand.
6. Addition of spices. Aromatic and flavoring additives are poured onto fried chips.
7. Packing products according to the specified grams.

On one line of the plant, three types of Lays chips can be made simultaneously.

What are Lays chips made of?

Many cheap brands have long been replacing potatoes with starch. They cook the chips like a pastry. From the above technology, it became clear what Leis chips are made of. For the most part, their crispy rings are obtained from potatoes, but special substances are added to them in the form of monosodium glutamate, which increases the shelf life of the chips. Flavor additives are also used.

Photos

Yasia Vogelhardt

There are about 40 different brands in the PepsiCo Corporation catalog: drinks (Ya, Lipton Ice Tea, Aqua Minerale, Pepsi, J7, Mirinda), dairy products (Merry Milkman, Miracle, Imunele), baby food ("Zdrivery", "Agusha") and not only. 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 a PepsiCo production near Moscow and saw . This time we went to the Frito Lay factory to find out how chips are made.

Chips production

The basis of chips is a good potato. According to the company's calculations, four kilograms of potatoes make a kilogram of chips. The plant buys potatoes mainly from Russian suppliers from the Moscow and Tula regions. Employees say that not every variety of potato is suitable for making chips. The fruits should be dense in structure and contain a minimum amount of sugar, there are only seven such varieties.

Potatoes are transported to production in trucks that can carry up to 20 tons of product at a time. Arriving at the factory, the machine pours the potatoes into a receiving container. An employee inspects potatoes - checks if they are suitable for chips. If there is a lot of greenery or black spots on the tubers, such a batch can be sent back to the supplier.

Frito Lay Factory

Snack manufacturer

LOCATION:
Kashira, Moscow region

OPENING DATE: 2002

EMPLOYEES: 1,000 people

PLANT AREA: 25 ha

lays.ru

Potatoes on the conveyor system enter the bunkers, where the first stage of sorting takes place - cleaning from sprouts and earth. The potato tuber should be between four and nine centimeters in diameter, so very small tubers are rejected and the machine discards them in 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 tank - a drum is installed inside it, on which clean water enters with the help of nozzles. Then they get rid of the peel using a round-shaped installation: getting into it, the tubers rotate around the rough walls, and the peel is erased. This happens in just 90 seconds.

After that, the potatoes are washed again in special baths to avoid getting the smallest particles of the peel after peeling. Then there is a sorting by size, and especially large tubers are waiting for a grader - in it the potatoes are cut into several pieces using round knives. Especially large potatoes are then cut in half again. The sorted tubers get to the inspection table - employees monitor the quality of the product, manually cut the pieces missed by the machine or throw out the unsuitable ones.

After sorting, the potatoes go through the conveyor system to the next section - a slicer, which cuts the tubers into thin slices: the allowable thickness of one slice is no more than 1.3 millimeters. The slicer has five "heads" inside which there are drums with knives - slicers. For the preparation of corrugated chips, the knives are changed to wavy ones. Then the slices are moved by a stream of water to the stage of a quick wash, where they are washed again - this procedure is necessary in order to get rid of excess starch. Starched water goes to a special plant, where the liquid is evaporated, getting dry starch. His company collects and sells.

Finally, the slices enter the frying stage, which takes place in a closed container at a temperature of 180 degrees. 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 give a signal to the operator, and he will be forced to dispose of the batch. The next stage of verification is optical sorting, during which chips with defects are “shot” with the help of nozzles. Only then is the product sent to the spice application area.

The chips enter a large spinning drum, inside of which seasonings are sprayed. Due to the fact that the slices are oily, the seasoning fits well on each slice and sticks to it. 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 are delivered to the conveyor already in a mixed form. The company says that for some flavors - such as garlic, tomato and paprika - a powder is applied to the chips, which consists of chopped vegetables. Monosodium glutamate and flavorings are also used to enhance the flavor. The company clarifies that all flavors are edible and are identical to natural products. “All this is indicated in the composition on the pack,” employees add.

At the same time, eight different flavors of chips can be made at the production facility. Some flavors are produced only for Russia - for example, "Porcini mushrooms with sour cream", "Salted cucumbers" and "Crab". For several years now, the most popular taste among Russians is “Young green onion”.

On applying seasonings, the process of making chips ends. The slices first enter the weigher, and then the mass is fed into the opened bag, which 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 deteriorate. Cooking time for one batch of chips is a little less than an hour. After packaging, the packages are put into boxes and sent to a warehouse, from where they go to stores in Russia and the CIS countries.

Chips are believed to have originated over 150 years ago in the United States. Legend has it that at one of America's finest restaurants, a customer (railroad tycoon Vanderbilt) didn't like the restaurant's signature dish, french fries, and returned it to the kitchen, complaining that the fries were too fat. The chef of the restaurant decided to play a trick on the client and cut the potatoes into thin 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's menu - chips.

Lay's chips have been produced since 1938. Today Frito Lay is one of the leading manufacturers 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 it was the first Frito Lay plant was opened in Kashira near Moscow.

Unloading, washing and temporary storage of potatoes

2. Nine 20-ton trucks with potatoes are unloaded here every day. The potatoes are conveyed through a conveyor belt into a washing machine, where recirculated water is used to clean them. In total, there are three such automatic car washes in the world. It is physically impossible to remove the washing process, everything takes place in a closed container. After washing, the potatoes go for temporary storage in bins - special containers, from where they are fed to production as needed.

Cleaning, sorting and cutting potatoes

3. Before the potato tubers enter the special cutting machine, the inspectors visually inspect the tubers walking along the belt and, if necessary, remove visible defects.

4. By the way: Not every potato is suitable for the production of chips. There are so-called potato chips, which are characterized by a high content of starch.

5. All employees periodically undergo a medical examination and have medical books, this is done so that a sick person does not get to work. In addition, before entering the workshop, everyone must wash their hands.

6. Potato peeling takes place in abrasive drums of periodic action. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, after which it is unloaded into the drum.

7. Directly 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 slicing, the potato slices enter the heart of the chip production line, the frying pan to fry the slices and produce the base chips. This equipment, which has no analogues, was created specifically for the PepsiCo plant and cannot be shown.

9. Thinly sliced ​​potato slices enter the oil bath, where they are fried for three minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius. High-quality oil, like high-quality potatoes, is the basis of the taste of chips.

10. The formulation was improved at the plant, using a special blend of vegetable oils, including locally produced high-olin sunflower oil, which reduced the content of saturated fats in the final product by 25%.

11. Every day the quality of products is checked at the factory. They check both basic chips, just out of the oven, and fully packed packages.

Adding spices

12. At this stage, special aromatic and flavoring additives, which are based on salt, are added to the fried potato chips.

13. Three flavors can be produced at the same time on the line.

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. On three conveyors, ready-made chips go to packaging. First comes distribution and weighing.

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 several portions at the same time and calculate the best weight combination, which has the most accurate weight in order to meet the standard and the weight indicated on the package.

18. Considering that the net weight of one pack is 28 grams, you can imagine the accuracy of the equipment setting.

19. The weighed portion is unloaded onto the packaging line.

20. The portion passes the control for the presence of foreign impurities (metal detector) and enters the package, which by this time has been prepared by the packaging machine from packaging materials (foil). Before sealing the seam, food nitrogen is supplied to the bag, which allows to ensure the necessary shelf life of the product. Weighing and packaging equipment works synchronously, at a speed of up to 80 bags per minute.

21. The packaged bag of chips goes to the operators, who manually stack the bags into cartons.

22. Boxes of chips are stacked on pallets and transported to the warehouse.

Parallel to the line To the production of croutons

24. A mixture of flour and water is fed into the extruder, heated and thoroughly mixed. From the extruder, crackers come out in the form of bundles, which are cut to size by rotating knives.

25. The next step is to dry the crackers in the oven and go to the seasoning area.

26. The packaging line is identical to the one on which chips are produced.

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 crackers.

30. Productivity of one line - 12 tons of finished products per day.

31. Employees are prohibited from wearing watches and jewelry, manicures and false nails are prohibited, hair must be covered with a net so that nothing gets on 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 even and the pack should open with one movement exactly along the seam, without gaps.

34. The team of the plant. By the way, the production line operates around the clock in three shifts.

36. Appearance of the plant.

37. Bon appetit!