Raw Material Availability
In 2011, India ranked first in production of banana fruit in the worldwide market with annual production of 29.7 millions of tonne which is the 20% of world’s entire bananas production. The variety of plantain called Nendran is the most suitable for chips processing, giving them a natural deep yellow color. Nendran is still widely used for processing banana chips today. The Dwarf Cavendish is also suitable for making banana chips.
Banana Chips Processing Status in India
Over 90% of bananas produced in India are consumed domestically as fresh fruit. And it is estimated that processing in banana is only to an extent of 2.5% of which about 1.80% is used to process banana chips. The rest is processed into the banana puree, panchamritham, banana pulp, banana beer, banana powder and so on.
Market Opportunities
The snack food market in India is reported to be growing at 7 to 8 % annually. And potato chips are estimated to constitute nearly 85% of total salty snack food market. In Kerala, the traditional banana and cassava chips industry worth around 750 crores, while the potato chips still account for a majority share. In the face of competition from branded potato chips in the market, local banana chips industry has upgraded their product by using attractive packaging and increasing the variety of flavors, in order to attract more consumer to buy it and occupy more market share.
Banana Slicing Machine
To produce banana chips, slicing is an important process. Different from manual slicing methods, banana slicing machine adopts electric mechanical slicing technique to slice the bananas, having high cutting efficiency with a capacity of about 300-600 kg/h. And the thickness of banana slice can be freely adjusted from 1mm-20mm. The machine is compactly designed and developed to meet the demands of small-to-medium-sized banana chips enterprises.
