How Hathi Masala Revolutionised Quality Control?

Food is a basic requirement of life. Everyone loves good food. Food serves, entertains, and also gives a reason to celebrate. Did you know, there are more recipes in the world than atoms in the universe?

Yes, you read it right.

Did you know that India is the world's largest producer, consumer, and exporter of spices? Did you know that India accounts for half of the global trade in spices?!. . .

Processing spices is a layered task. Every manufacturer, who thrives to deliver, faces multiple challenges incessantly. Maintaining the quality and consistency of the product is one of them. Quality, consistency, and experience are the foundations of any business. In order for the product to be of high quality, various units have to be controlled and continuously researched. This process is complicated and time consuming. At the same time, the process also demands a number of different forces which slow down the production. Hathi Masala, too faced similar obstacles. However, the company decided to overcome it and accelerated various research cycles. The intensive search finally met results in 2015 in the form of the German-made NIR machine. The cost of this machine is Rs 40 lakhs.

Hathi Masala is India’s first spices manufacturer to own the Near InfraRed Spectrometer Machine. NIR is an acronym for Near InfraRed spectroscopy, and it refers to the analytical technique of using near-infrared radiation to analyse samples for compositional and characteristic traits. The company’s testing capacity has improved outstandingly by 3 times following the machine’s usage.

Before the NIR machine’s installation 75 tests of raw and finished goods per day were met whereas today 250 tests are met for the same. (Before the NIR machine’s installation 50 tests of raw material and goods were met per day whereas today 150 tests of the same are met. On the other hand, simultaneously, 25 tests of finished goods were made whereas today an impressive count of 100 tests is met for the same.)

The company undertakes testing in the NIR machine every 30 minutes. The testing requires only 3-4 grams of sample and the results are met in 2 to 3 minutes. Hathi Masala is the only spices manufacturer of Gujarat to have this machine, and at the same time it is also the first spices manufacturer to install this machine in India.

The machine performs automatic testing without the use of any chemicals. This machine directly increases the quality up to 20% and at the same time there is a direct difference of up to 10% in the consistency of the spice. Improved consistency aids uniformity of spices and as a result the customer gets the same quality product year after year. Improved consistency gives the customer the same taste, the same colour, and the same purity. Manual testing takes 2 to 3 days and also requires qualified people while the NIR machine is fully automatic.

Commercialized starting in the 1970s, NIR has become a popular and widespread analytical technique for the analysis of food, agricultural, pharmaceutical and chemical products. NIR analysers have the following benefits:

• Easy to use - Normal operation consists of loading a sample cell and starting the instrument
• Little sample preparation - Most samples can be analysed as-is or with simple grinding or particle size reduction
• No hazardous chemical waste
• Fast analysis
• Simultaneous results for multiple parameters - Multiple constituents are predicted with one sample analysis
• Reliable results
• Cost effective - One analyst can typically analyse several hundred samples in a day with no consumable costs

NIR measures organic compounds critical to foodstuffs, including Natural Colour Content, SHU, Crude Fibre, Volatile Oil, Non-volatile Oil, Moisture, Gluten, Curcumin, Piperine, Carbohydrates, Fats, Sugars, Micro & Macro Compositions, Starch, Protein, Acidic Content and many more in 2 to 3 minutes. These are measurable at very low concentrations, as little as 0.1%.

The sole aim of Hathi Masala has been to deliver world class spices to the customers in an appropriate manner. Various units and visionary experts of the company constantly thrive in the field of research and development for the same. There are countless other advanced and unique features that the company roots to establish in the near future.