Energy Consumption Pattern of Value Added Products of Pearl Millet

Abstract

Pearl millet is one of the major food crops in most of the arid and semi arid cropping region of India. Being the fourth most important cereal crop, pearl millet gives more nutrients and minerals to the rural people. The main purpose of the present study was to carry out an analysis of energy utilized during processing of pearl millet for preparing two different bakery products (i.e. cake and biscuits) under laboratory conditions. The present study was conducted at established lab. of Centre for Excellence, Pearl Millet, HAU, Hisar. In this lab, processing of pearl millet is done on regular basis for preparation of cakes and biscuits for demonstration as well as selling purpose through ATIC (Agriculture Technology and Information Centre) of HAU, Hisar. Pearl millet processing involves various unit operations such as cleaning, drying, milling, baking and packaging. Basically two types of energy i.e. manual and electrical were used during processing of pearl millet. Electricity was the main energy source for the value added products of pearl millet. Electricity was used to run electric oven, spiral mixer, dough maker, mill, packaging machine, lights etc. In pearl millet processing, some of the operations were done manually like, cleaning, sun drying, feeding of biscuits in package and weighing etc. Manual energy used was around 8% while electrical energy used was around 92%.