According to the American Spice Trade Association, approximately 877 million pounds of spices are used in the United States each year. Today, most spices, such as clove, black pepper, cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger, are added in a dried, ground form during food preparation. Careful processing is required to get easy-to-use ground spices that also preserve the essential oils responsible for their coveted flavor-enhancing qualities and nutritional benefits. This effort requires efficient processing, which uses specialized tools and machines at an industrial scale.
Spices Manufacturing Process
The processing of raw spices involves several specific steps from the time they are cultivated and procured to the finished ground product ready for shipping to customers.
These steps generally include cleaning, drying, grinding, blending, sieving, and grading. Following the removal of dust and dirt, pure raw spices are sun-dried or carefully roasted. Poorly dried raw spice can lead to the development of mold.
Grinding to the desired sizes can be a multi-stage process, sometimes in temperature-controlled ways. The result is an evenly sorted granular mixture whose size fraction depends on the particular spice being processed.
Spice Processing Equipment
Prater Industries designs and manufactures durable, industrial-scale particle reduction machines that are perfect for dry processing and bulk-solids applications needed in spice processing. Several of Prater’s products are particularly noteworthy in this regard:
- Full-Screen Hammermills. Industrial strength grinding of up to thousands of pounds of raw space each day.
- Mega Mill Hammermill. Capable of finer grinding, easier product change overs and ideally suited for use in pneumatic circuits for dust free grinding.
- Fine Grinders. Offers the finest, most uniform size reduction when grinding spices. Like the Mega Mill, is easy to clean and meant for use in a pneumatic system for cooler grinding and dust free operation.