Almond Hull Sugar Nutritional Bar Formulation and Production

Our main purpose is to create a formula card for a nutritional bar using almond hull pulp as the main ingredient. To do this, we must formulate a batch process for the nutritional bar, then translate to shift-based, continuous production at an industrial scale. Almond hulls may contain aflatoxins, and as such are not regarded as safe for human consumption yet; so we must derive a process for making almond hulls safe to eat. We also must investigate packaging of nutritional bars and production numbers so that we can accurately examine the cost of everything. 

1. Create a Mass Energy Balance to lay out every aspect of creating a nutritional bar.

2. Make a recipe and process for a good tasting nutritional bar made from almond hull sugar. 

3. Create a living model for production and packaging that can be adjusted at any time.

We will formulate our own nutritional bar, and design its production process. We will start by performing research on the market and ingredients to accurately examine cost. Once we know what we are making we will finalize a formula card, analyze its constituents, and create a model with the mass energy balance for the batch and packaging processes.

Advisor(s): 

Abstract/Description:
Business Need Almond kernel production in California continues to grow. For every pound of almond kernel, the meat,  four  pound  of  almond  hull  is  also  produced.  Up  to  now  the  dairy  industry  has  taken  the  almond  hulls  and  included  them  in  the  herd  rations. The dairy  industry  is  shrinking  quickly  in  California. The mass of hulls available to hull disposition no longer is in balance.  Almond  hull  contains a  significant  level  of  sugar;  a  unique  set  of  antioxidants  which  may  have  benefits to human health; and a significant amount of both soluble and insoluble fiber. 
 
Client 
PreProcess, Inc. is engaged in developing and delivering engineered system solutions throughout the state for chemical engineering applications. The team’s deliverables would become part of the PreProcess, Inc technology solutions available for application to client operations. 

 

Scope 
The team shall design and evaluate options for the formulating and manufacturing a nutritional bar made  from  almond  hulls.  The  team  will use  other  ingredients  to  improve  the  taste  profile  if  required.  The  team  will  identify  the  benefits  of  the  almond  hull  constituents and  determine  the  specific major component chemistry. The team will develop a market mass balance based upon the  anticipated  amount of  almond  hulls  that  could  be  dedicated  to  a  product  of  this  type.  This  uptake of hull mass must be balanced with the typical campaign sizing of common food contract packing operations. The number of campaigns per year must also be determined using reasonable estimation methods on the possible size of the market.  

 

Deliverables 
The team  shall deliver  a  written report  and  a  live  poster  presentation  of  the  report  content.  The report shall contain the following studies. The highlights of each study shall be a section in the final presentation: 

A. The definition of the business opportunity including a history and summary analysis of previously implemented comparable technical options and the current market opportunities for the product

B. A live variable and working Microsoft Excel model of a constituent level formula card and market product mass and energy balance (MEB).

C. A food ingredient health and safety evaluation using one of the common evaluation methods

D. A biochemistry-based constituent human nutrition, health, and wellness description of each ingredient upon which product claims could be built.

E. A formula card in both the as-is ingredient format and the mass balance constituent format.

F. A complete bill of materials required to produce the final product in a stock keeping unit format.

G. Feedstock and product characterizations including the validated test method accuracies and precision on each analytical method used in product quality control.

H. A project milestone schedule (+/- 3    months) for a contract packing-based first production campaign run of the product.

I. A CapEx and anticipated OpEx estimated cost model to a +/- 30% accuracy tied to the live working formulation and market production mass balance.

J. A list of possible contract packing operations in California who could produce the product.