ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher Sanjaynath sir as well as our
principal who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic – industrial visit
to Balaji snaks and namkeen, which also helped me in doing a lot of Research and I came to know about
so many new things I am really thankful to them. I am also grateful to my school who took us to
industrial visit and a special thanks to the owner of Balaji wafers factory who allowed us to explore their
factory and also make us understand about their process of makind delicious wafers and snacks for us.
Secondly I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project
within the limited time frame.

AIM OF INDUSTRIAL VISIT

1. How are the potatoes processed ?

These were the few questions which were answered during our industrial visit to Balaji.
ABOUT INDUSTRY
Balaji Wafers began as a micro-retail enterprise in 1974, managed by the Virani brothers at Astron
Cinema, Rajkot. By 1982, spurred by the initiative of Virani brothers, this grew to a home-based
manufacturing venture. A decade later, the brothers set up an international standard automatic plant in
Gujarat, with steps to increase capacity and quality. In 2000, Balaji Wafers installed its first fully
automatic plant. By 2014, Balaji Wafers captured a 70% market share in snacks market. Today, the
company employs more than 1800 personnel in their Rajkot and Valsad manufacturing facilities. Balaji
has the capacity to manufacture 100,000 kg of potato wafers, along with 500,000 kg of savouries per
day.

By their retail success they were inspired to set a semi-automatic plant instead of preparing
wafers by the traditional frying method. The product gradually reached every part of Gujarat,
and the Viranis wanted to take over the whole western India, so the biggest automatic plant of
Gujarat came into the picture.

In the initial stage Balaji Wafers Pvt. Ltd. maja set up their plant at Aji Vasad (Industrial Zone,
Rajkot) with a new concept of making potato chips. The main benefit they got is the readymade
infrastructure availability due to which their cost was reduced to large extent. They operated
there for around 22 years.

Balaji Wafers then set up their new fully automatic plant near Metoda G.I.D.C. which is in the
area of the village Vajdi, outside the town of Rajkot.
Balaji Wafers had a tremendous growth in the chips sector in the 2007-2016 decade, outwitting
the marks of major players like Lays', Kurkure, Parle and Bingo. The company aims at a similar
market grab in the frozen foods and fries sector dominated by McCain Foods, by launching a
new line of production under the Iscon-Balaji Foods brand.

PROCESS

Before entering the plant, all the students were given haircaps as per the Food Safety Act and
the Food Hygiene Regulations. Visit started by introducing some of the basic processes of
automation. Balaji Wafer plant is an entirely automatic plant and at their Valsad plant they
manufacture potato wafers and other Namkeens. They briefed us about the various
manufacturing products like wafers, chevdo, etc. Firstly they informed us about the safety
instruction & guidelines to be carried out in the process plant. As we know Balaji Wafers Pvt.
Ltd.’s main product is potato chips.
 Potatoes that are freshly dug from the ground are placed in trucks and transported to a
building before going to the storage for grading. The cold storage at the plant has the capacity
of storing potatoes worth Rs.10 Crore. During the grading process, potatoes are inspected for
rot, green heads, double growth, or all other types of defects or disease. In the initial
processing phase, the potatoes flow from storage tanks into a large hopper that slowly feeds
them into a destoner. Our instructor guided us to the warehouse. It was a huge warehouse
completely filled with potatoes. We notice there was one separator. Our instructor guides us
that separator used to separate potatoes in big and small size depending upon the
requirement. Here all the potatoes are checked again using an Image Processing Technique for
any defects that were missed by human eyes during the grading process. The rejected pieces of
potato are then discarded. Small size potatoes would be returned to the distributor for the
market. Only the required size potatoes would be further moved for the process.

The peeler consists of abrasive rollers that revolve at a given speed to insure that the potato is
peeled properly. Upon completion of removing the skins, the potatoes are processed on an
inspection line where employees inspect them again. Potatoes that do not pass inspection are
removed prior to processing. Upon completion of inspection, the potatoes proceed on the
conveyor belt to a lift where they are dropped into a holding hopper that feeds the slicers.

The potatoes are then sliced very thinly after they fall into a revolving slicer that has sharp cutting
blades that are set by a gauge. The potato slices then proceed into a rotating mesh drum that is
constantly running in water. As the potato slices tumble in the drum, they are washed and most of the
starch removed from them From the drum, the potato slices proceed up a mesh conveyor where they
are washed and dried upon entering the frying kettle. The slices fry for approximately 4 minutes.

There are paddle wheels that move the slices forward to the front of the machine. As the potato slices
leave the paddle wheel area, they are submerged into the cooking oil by a mesh conveyor. This
conveyor finishes cooking the slices. The operator of the cooker inspects the chips to insure they are
completely cooked and also to insure the temperature of the machine is proper at all times. This plant
operates two manufacturing lines, both of which have production capacity of approximately 2,200
kg/hour. As the chips proceed past the fryer's inspection point, they fall onto a small mesh stainless
steel conveyor and then pass under the salter.
 As the salt is dispensed, it falls onto a spinner type bracket that spreads the salt evenly on the chips.
Here, different flavors are added along with salt for preparing different products. Here, each time,
approximately, 35-40 kg of salt is used. After the chips are salted, they fall onto a vibrating conveyor
where they are inspected using Image Processing Technique. Chips that do not meet the required
standards are removed from the line and disposed of into plastic containers. From the inspection
conveyor, the chips are dropped into a bucket lift which elevates the chips onto the overhead vibrating
conveyors that process the finished product into the automatic packaging machines.

The chips are then weighed and deposited into a former which releases the chips into Plastic bags. The
bags are then packed into boxes by employees or automatic packers. Packers inspect baggage for proper
weight and sealing of the bag. They are then placed on conveyors to be sent to the warehouse. The
warehouse personnel stacks the cartons and issues them to the driver salesman for redistribution to
selling outlets. All cases that go into the warehouse are rotated on a daily basis so that first in and first
out concept is established. Since a potato is approximately 80% water, one will get approximately 20 kg
of chips for every 100 kg of potatoes processed.
And then finally the consumers of the product have the tasty flavor in their mouth by eating it with
family and friends.

CONCLUSION
Thus, We visited the Balaji Wafers Pvt. Ltd. Plant at Valsad and have understood the whole process of
production of Potato Wafers, starting from storage to packaging. We saw the importance of Image
Processing Techniques being used in the production lines. This is one of the applications where Image
Processing can be applied. This reduces the number of human personnel required for inspection and
also increases the accuracy by discarding products having minute defects that are not even visible to the
human eyes.