PRODUCTION AND PACKAGING OF CASSAVA BREAD

WHAT IS CASSAVA BREAD?

Cassava Bread – Bread is an age long product made principally from wheat flour and other ingredients like yeast, salt, sugar and baking fat. It can be classified into plain (white), rich and brown bread. The plain bread is normally the commercial bread devoid of additives such as milk, egg, fruits etc. 

Cassava bread is composite bread made when certain proportion of wheat flour is replaced with cassava flour to produce acceptable bread with other bread making ingredients in the right proportion.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Beginning of renewed interest on the implementation of 10% Cassava/Wheat Flour Bread.

The then Honorable Minister (Prof. Turner Isoun), Federal Ministry of Science and Technology through a letter Ref. FMST/PARAP108/T/19 dated 17th April, 2003 wrote His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo requesting a visit to Mr. President by the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO) to formally present its contributions to the National Revenue Base Tagged “Celebration of Success” as well as a Five Year Strategic Plan for the Revitalization of FIIRO.

Another letter Ref. HMST/FMST/010/VIX and dated 2nd December, 2003 were written from the Minister to the President.

The Presidency responded through letter Ref. SH/COS/70/8203 dated 28th December, 2003, confirming that Mr. President will receive the Institute on Monday 12th January, 2004 at 12.30 hours in the State House. During the presentation, one of the products was bread baked from 10% Cassava Flour and confectioneries backed from 100% cassava flour, in addition to other products of the Institute such as palm wine, soy-ogi, cassava chips, various fruit juices and wine.

It could therefore, be said that President Obasanjo was quite familiar with cassava/wheat bread, hence, he showed considerable interest in it when he visited the Institute on 22nd March, 2004.  

The birth of the current interest in cassava bread came during the visit of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo to the Institute on the 22nd March, 2004. During his inspection on some products on display by the Institute, he was attracted to the cassava products on display by the Institute especially cassava bread and confectioneries. 

The former President gave a directive to the then Director- General of FIIRO, Dr. O. Olatunji to summon a meeting of the well known Flour Millers like Dangote Group, Nigerian Flour Mills, Honeywell Group and the others to watch the demonstration of cassava bread production at FIIRO as the Millers claimed that no matter how low the percentage, cassava flour will not allow the dough to rise.

In response to this directive, the Institute issued out letters of invitation to Flour Millers and carried out the demonstration successfully. Thereafter, the President summoned a meeting of all stakeholders in bread production – the Legislature, the Executive, the Research Institutions, the Cassava Farmers Association, the Flour Millers Association and the Master Bakers in the State.

As a follow up to the State House Meeting, a number of activities took place. The President constituted a Committee on cassava bread which was inaugurated by the then Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. The then Honorable Minister of Science and Technology (Prof. Isoun), made a financial request to the President for FIIRO to demonstrate the innovation of 10% Cassava Composite Bread in all the 36 states of the Federation and that the legislation needed for actualizing a policy on 10% cassava content in bread was to be prepared.

By 1st January, 2005, legislation on the policy took effect but due to shortage of cassava flour to the millers, the Federal Government instructed that the implementation of the policy should take off with 5% cassava flour inclusion.  

Also a minimum quality requirement of flour inclusion was set up by Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON).

 LITERATURE  REVIEW

On 28 December 2012, the following were published by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture as achievements of the cassava policy initiative . The said achievements include:

i. The Development of 40% substitution of cassava flour for wheat flour, through collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. It was reported that this is the first time such a level of substitution will be achieved.

 ii. The Presidential directive on November 30, 2011 that the cassava 

Flour bread should be commercialized and within 90 days, the commercialization was successfully achieved in February 2012 when UTC, the largest corporate baker of bread, introduced the cassava flour bread, with 20% cassava flour substitution for wheat flour. The feat was repeated in April 2012 when Butter field, another large corporate bakery, introduced its 20% high quality cassava flour bread. It was reported that cassava Bread is 60% of the cost of wheat Bread.

iii. Expanding the use of cassava in food manufacturing industries. Technologies exist for the use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat in bread-making and biscuits, pastries and snack foods manufacture (sertin,1988, eggleston and omoaka,1994, sefloor, 1995 and onabolu etal,1998).

 

MATERIALS AND METHODS OF PRODUCTION AND PACKAGING OF CASSAVA BREAD

The present study is aimed at assessing the suitability and acceptability of cassava composite bread through proximate and sensory evaluations.  

100% hard winter wheat flour was obtained from the Niger Mills, Calabar, Tms (4) 1425 cassava variety was obtained from a local farmer, the oven was fabricated  locally, yeast, fat, baking powder, sugar, would be obtained from the baking shop, all in Nasarawa market, Nasarawa state Nigeria.  

METHOD

The cassava tubers were peeled between 10 and 24hrs post- harvest, washed, sliced thinly with a papaya shredder. The shred-ded cassava was washed with enough water to remove part of the starch and water allowed to drain. It was thinly spread on a clean concrete surface on a straw mat and left in the sun for about 11hrs until it became brittle. The brittle shredded cassava was ground through a corn meal grinder and passed through a No. 120 mesh sieve (Burman, Germany). The cassava flour was packed in plastic buckets.  

Preparation of composite flours  10, 20  and 30  part by weight of cassava flour were intimately mixed with 90, 80 and 70 part  by weight of 100% wheat flour to obtain 10, 20 and 30% of cassava/wheat composite flour respectively. They were stored in flour sack in a dried condition for use.  

Chemical analysis 

4 bread samples, 100% wheat, 90, 80 and 70% composite flour bread were analysed for moisture, dry matter, ash, proteins and fat contents using analytical methods recommended by A. O. A. C (1995) and James (1984).

SENSORY EVALUATION  

The 3 samples of composite bread and the control were served to a 10 semi-trained panelists made up of a population of staff and students of Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, who were familiar with the sensory attributes – taste, aroma, texture, colour, of the samples. A 9-point hedonic scale was designed to measure the degree of preference of the samples. The samples were presented in identical containers, coded with 3-digit random numbers served simultaneously to ease the possibility of the panelists to re-evaluate a sample. The categories were converted to numerical scores ranging from 1 to 9, with 1 as the highest and 9 at the lowest level of preference (Bushman and Stack, 1996; Christenso, 1992; Iwe, 2002). Necessary precautions were taken to prevent carry-over flavour during the tasting by ensuring that panelists passed a piece of lemon fruit in their mouths or rinsed with water after each stage of sensory evaluation. 

 EXPECTED OUTCOME

The expected outcome for cassava bread.

The overriding goal of this process is to contribute to the development and maintenance of a well functioning market for Nigerian cassava and cassava products. The following are the expected outcomes in the production of cassava bread.

1.                  To increase the sale of locally grown or processed cassava products.

2.                  To develop and commercialize the innovative cassava technologies.

3.                  To enhance international and/or cross border trade.

4.                  To enhance the quality of the product and profitability.

5.                  Improve consumer and retailer attitude towards cassava and cassava based              products.

6.                  To improve the farmers standard of living and livelihood.

7.                  Develop new uses for cassava.

8.                  To encourage excellence and use of high quality raw materials and final product development.

9.                  To promote the attribute of cassava and encourage greater utilization.

The overriding objectives of these outcomes are to encourage an environment where industry agents initiate and activate the market corrections within their power. Each outcome is suggested in the spirit of providing positive support to a deserving cassava industry.

 

REFERENCES 

1.      Eagleston, G. B., M.B. Okoye and V.M. Jeon (1992). Traditional African Methods   of Cassava Processing and Utilization and Research Needs. In Tropical Root   Crops Production of Roots Crops-Based Industries. Pp.4-6

2.      Ezedinma, C., N. Nkang and I. Simon (2006). Price Transmission and Market Integration: A test of the Central Market Hypothesis of Geographical Markets for Cassava Products in Nigeria. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Ibadan.

3.      FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) (2000). The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

4.  Expanding the use of cassava in food manufacturing industries as a partial substitute for wheat in bread-making and biscuits, pastries and snack foods. (Sertin,1988, eggleston and omoaka,1994, sefloor, 1995 and onabolu etal,1998).