Nature's Mix

位于安大略剑桥的“自然混合”是一家健康燕麦片混合物的生产商。该公司目前生产17种不同的格兰诺拉麦片混合物，供应给安大略的健康食品市场。Nature's Mix有意扩大其生产线并实现自动化，以增加产品供应，满足不断增长的客户需求。格兰诺拉麦片混合料中成分的独特组合需要优化烹饪参数，包括温度和时间、混合方法以及顶部空间的空气流量。因此，为这种混合物选择合适的烹饪技术具有挑战性。为了获得最佳质量的煮熟的格兰诺拉麦片混合物，烹饪设备应该能够控制温度，以给定的速度连续混合材料，并从系统中去除潮湿的空气。现有技术无法满足所有这些要求。因此，该研究项目有两个目标：1）开发用于烹饪格兰诺拉麦片混合物的原型，并满足公司规格，2）评估这项新技术对产品质量的影响。康内斯托加学院食品加工技术研究所的研究小组（IFPT）将进行实验，以原型的设备与新技术，该公司可以利用在烹饪格兰诺拉麦片在一个提升的规模，但不改变产品质量。Nature's Mix将通过健康食品市场的销售增长、扩大生产和创造新的就业机会而受益。

Nature's Mix, located in Cambridge Ontario, is a producer of healthy granola mixes. The company currently produces 17 different granola mixes to supply to the health food market in Ontario. Nature's Mix is interested in expanding and automating their production line to increase product supply to meet growing customer demand.The unique combination of ingredients in the granola mix requires optimization of cooking parameters including temperature and time, mixing method, and air flow in the headspace. Therefore, choosing a suitable cooking technology for this kind of a mixture is challenging. To achieve optimum quality of the cooked granola mix, the cooking equipment should be capable of controlling temperature, continuously mixing the material at a given speed, and removing the moist air from the system. The existing technology does not meet all these requirements. Thus, the research project holds two objectives: 1) development of a prototype for cooking granola mix and that meets company specifications, and 2) evaluation of the effects of this new technology on product quality.The research team at Conestoga College's Institute for Food Processing Technology (IFPT) will conduct experiments to prototype an equipment with novel technology that the company can utilize in cooking granola at an elevated scale, but without altering the product quality. Nature's Mix will benefit through increased sales growth in the healthy food product market, scaled up production, and creation of new employment opportunities.