America Garlic Onion Processing

I. American Garlic and Onion Introduction 
America is one of the largest garlic and onions producing countries in the world. And California is American top producer of garlic and onions. As the largest producing state in the U.S. of garlic and onions, producing over 90% of commercial garlic.
1. California is the major garlic producing state, due to California's unique climate and fertile soil contributing to consistent yield and quality. Garlic in California is harvested between late June and mid-August and can be stored for eight to nine month in a cool, dry place with plenty of circulation. Garlic can be consumed not only as fresh vegetable but also as the condiment in various food preparations like curries powders, sauce, salad dressings, meat sausages, etc.
2. The onion industry represents one of highest-valued vegetables produced in the United States. Onions generally include two marketable categories: spring/summer fresh market onions and fall/winter storage onions. The most common onions are storage onion in the U.S.. And California is the major onion producer, accounting for a large percentage of onion production in the United States.

II. Garlic and Onion Processing Market in the USA
1. Garlic Processing Market
♦ In U.S., the consumption of raw garlic is low, and few raw garlic are utilized in seafood and salad eating. Garlic are often used as flavor in the cooking, flavored soup in fast food, garlic powder added in food.
♦ Garlic deep processing products in America consist of: garlic powder, fried garlic flakes, garlic juice, garlic oil, garlic essence capsule and so on. These processing products have extensive market prospect in fined chemical industry, medical and health industry, flavoring industry, food & feed additive industry and etc.. The garlic powder is processed from garlic slices. The main dehydration way of garlic powder is hot air drying in the U.S., because drying temperature & time are controllable by hot air drying.
♦ There is strong garlic culture in the USA, and every year Gilroy in CA-the famous hometown of garlic will hold the garlic festival, which is the town’s signature event and draws more than 100,000 visitor annually. The festival features a wide variety of garlic-infused foods to show people all over the world various deep-processed garlic products. The unique garlic culture in U.S. guides people to form good garlic consumption, promote the prosperity of garlic consumer market. Thus garlic processing industry will get the further development.
2. Onion Processing Market
Onions in U.S. are generally processed into crispy onions and onion oil.
♦ No limits to the application of crispy onions in America. Crispy onions can be regarded as a delicious ingredient in like onion bread, they can be used in sauces, soups, with meat and as a snack. They also make a tasty topping for salads, pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers, mashed potato, pasta and egg dishes.
♦ Onion oil is extracted from onions through steam distillation. Onion oil in America is supplied worldwide to flavoring agent and foodstuff industries.

III. Deep-processed Garlic Products 
1. Dried Garlic Flake Production

Dehydrated garlic accounts for roughly 75% of U.S. garlic consumption. The dehydrated garlic flakes have excellent flavor & taste and high nutritional value, highly in demand for their best quality in market. The major processing steps of dried garlic flakes are as follows:
Choosing materials→garlic separating→garlic peeling→garlic washing→garlic slicing→garlic washing→garlic slice dehydration→garlic slice drying→garlic slice packing
1.1 Raw materials: Choose mature and unbroken garlic with no mildew.
1.2 Garlic separating
Break the garlic bulbs into separated cloves. Put garlic into garlic separating machine. When the whole garlic passes between rubber rollers of garlic separating machine, garlic bulbs are automatically separated into cloves.
1.3 Garlic peeling
Peel garlic cloves by garlic peeling machine. Adopting pneumatic principle, garlic peeling machine will peel garlic cloves without water with peeling rate of 95%.
1.4 Garlic washing
Wash garlic cloves with garlic washing machine to remove off foreign materials.
1.5 Garlic slicing
Cut the clean garlic cloves into flakes by garlic slicer machine. Clean garlic cloves are uniformly sliced to 1.5-2.2mm. The surface of garlic slice is smooth without damage.
1.6 Garlic washing
Wash garlic flakes by the washing machine until garlic flakes become clean.
1.7 Garlic flake dehydration
Remove the surface water of garlic flakes through the high speed rotation by vegetable centrifugal dewatering machine. The dehydration period generally is around one minute. Notice: too long dehydration period will make garlic slices soft and form protruding vesicles on the flake surface, which has bad influence on product quality.
1.8 Garlic drying
Spread garlic flakes uniformly on the drying tray, then push these flakes into hot air drying oven. The drying temperature is set between 65～70℃, and drying period is around 6.5-7 hours. After drying, the water content of final garlic flakes is around 5%～6%.
1.9 Packing
The final garlic products can be packed by vacuum package machine for long period storage.

2. Garlic Powder 
Garlic powder is a very common seasoning in U.S., mainly used for pasta, pizza, grilled chicken and etc.. It is further processed on the basis of dried garlic flakes. In other words, if you would like to make garlic powder, you need do the above 1-8 steps to make dried garlic flakes. Then use garlic mashed making machine to make mashed garlic. Thus, you can get high quality garlic powder.

3. Garlic Oil Making

Rich in antioxidants and other healthy nutrients, garlic oil is a fresh and flavorful ingredient to add to the food and cooking oil. It is important to point out that garlic oil is constituted more of vegetable oils.
Garlic essential oil is produced when fresh garlic is crushed and subjected to steam distillation. The production procedures include:
Garlic separating→garlic peeling→garlic washing→garlic mashing with adding water→fermentation→steam distillation→oil and water separation→refining→packing

IV. Onion Processed Products
1. Crispy Onion Processing
Working process of Crispy onions:
Onion root cutting→onion peeling→onion cutting→washing→dehydration→frying→deoiling→flavoring→packing.

Crispy onion production line mainly includes the following equipment:
1.1 Onion root cutting machine for cutting onion tops and tails cleanly one time without damage.
1.2 Onion peeler machine is for automatically removing the peels of onion.
1.3 Onion cutting machine is to cut onions into fine slices.
1.4 Water bubble washing machine is used to wash onion slices.
1.5 Air dehydration machine for drying onion slices.
1.6 Onion fryer machine is for frying dried onion slices and there are different types of fryer machines.
1.7 Fried onion deoiling machine is used to remove extra oil.
1.8 Seasoning Machine for seasoning fried onions with flavor to achieve better taste.
1.9 Automatic packing machine for weighing, filling crispy onions and injecting nitrogen automatically.

2. Onion Oil Processing 
Onion oil is extracted from onions through steam distillation. This highly concentrated ethereal oil contains all the typical onion taste components. Onion oil technological process:
Fresh onions-cleaning/rinsing-onion slicing-onion freezing-oil extraction-finished oil product
Please notice that in large scale garlic or onions processing, the weigh sorter is generally utilized to classify garlic by weight. It is designed for small or medium sized products with several elements re-engineered for garlic processing, can also be used for onions, stone fruits, apples, citrus fruits and other round fruit and vegetables. 

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Nepal Ginger Processing

1. Ginger Production in Nepal
Ginger, used primarily as a spice, is popularly called aduwa in Nepali. Nepal is the world’s third largest ginger producer after India and China, producing 235,000 MT of ginger in 2013, accounting for 12% of the world’s total. Ginger production area has increased from 19,081 hectares in 2011 to 20,256 hectares in 2012, thanks to the swelling market demand.
As Nepal’s traditional cash crop, ginger is cultivated by approximately 66,000 families. Some of the major producing districts are Ilam, Palpa, Makwanpur, Jhapa, Sunsari and Morang. There are two types of ginger varieties: Nashe (which is rich in fibres) and Boshe (which has very few fibres). Most of the Nepalese gingers are of Nashe varieties, which are preferred as an ingredient of mixed spice and for producing ginger powder. Boshe variety has better yield and quality than Nashe varieties.

2. Nepali Ginger Export Market
Ginger exports jumped significantly by 162.49% to 62,843 tonnes in 2012-13, but declined by 66.2% in 2013-2014. Shipments plunged from Rs 1.33 billion to Rs 449.9 million. Virtually all Nepali ginger trade is with its neighbor India, mostly used by the Ayurveda pharmaceutical industry. However, due to the soil content and dirty look, Nepali ginger has not been able to get better prices in the Indian market for many years. In 2013, 65% of Nepali ginger was uncleaned and unprocessed exported to India, where is then cleaned and sold at a higher price. Though the demand in major markets like Dubai and EU is growing, Nepal is now unable to participate, as it has almost no export-ready cleaned and processed ginger products. Ginger has been identified by the Nepal Trade Integration Strategy (NTIS) 2010 as having high export potential. There is interest in supporting the industry to process ginger (dried or fresh) for major markets like Japan, Dubai and the EU.

3. Value Chain Actors in Nepal Ginger Market
3.1 Input suppliers: Input suppliers provide inputs for ginger production. Seed, FYM and labour are major inputs and are usually managed by farmers. Pesticides are rarely used in ginger and are provided by agro-vets. Chemical fertilizers are supplied by fertilizer dealers. Agencies provide technical knowledge and inputs in some extent; the flow of information and inputs is not satisfactory.

3.2 Farmers: Three types of farmers are engaged in ginger production: small farmers with subsistence production, small commercial farmers and large-scale commercial farmers. Gingers from small farmers usually do not enter the market or enter in a very limited quantity especially in the local retail market. The latter two farmers sell most of their gingers to market intermediaries. Farmers are also engaged in ginger processing especially dried ginger.
3.3 Local processors: Locally ginger is mainly traded in fresh or dried forms. Dry ginger(Sutho) is mostly processed by farmers themselves by using traditional methods. Ginger candy, pickles, squash and other processed products are processed by local cooperatives in very little quantity. Though there is good scope of value addition in Nepal, value addition (especially processing) is not a commercial practice.
3.4 Road-head traders: Road-head traders are located at road-head and collect goods from farmers. These traders usually trade various goods including retailing of grains and foodstuffs. Ginger is collected and sorted to some extent such as removing the decayed and spoiled ginger. Most of the gingers go to exporters and some go to national traders.
3.5 National Traders: National Traders get goods from cooperative and road-head traders. They sell ginger and its products to national markets, national processors/manufacturers and exporters, sometimes directly to Indian commission agents. They also sell ginger to the local markets.
3.6 National processors/manufacturers: these are firms engaged in producing ginger products and other products using ginger as one of the ingredients. Dabur Nepal, Gorkha Ayurved, Singh durbar Vaidyakhana, Male International and local spice companies are some of the examples.
3.7 Exporters: Major part of the fresh and dry ginger goes to India while very small amount of ginger products are exported overseas.
3.8 Commission Agents: Most of the ginger exported to India initially goes to Indian commission agents (CA), who usually take 6-7% of the total sales as commission. Payment of 50 to 70% is made during delivery and the rest is paid once the goods are sold completely by deducting the commission.
3.9 Wholesalers: Wholesalers sell the goods to retailers, hotels, industries, and institutional users.
3.10 Retailers: Retailers get the goods from wholesalers and sell to end consumer.

4. Ginger Product in Nepal Market

4.1 Fresh ginger: Fresh ginger is main traded ginger product in Nepal. Young ginger has mild flavour and pale, thin skin that need no peeling. Fresh rhizomes with low fibre content yet rich in aroma, pungency, fat and protein are preferred for green ginger purposes and seeds.
Fresh ginger goes through only small value addition activities, mainly cleaning and sorting. The cleaning activity starts from the farmers’ level by removing soil and roots. At trader’s level there is no practice of washing and cleaning within Nepal. Due to lack of washing facilities in Nepal, the Nepalese ginger are not receiving better price due to soil content and dirty looks. Simple post-harvest handling practices like cleaning, sorting and grading will make ginger competitive in market.
4.2 Dried ginger (Sutho in Nepali): Dried ginger is second mostly traded product in Nepal. Dried ginger is prepared from mature rhizomes with full aroma, flavour and pungency. Cultivars with medium-sized rhizomes and high curing percentage are preferred. The product is prepared in

western part with minimum evidence in the east.
Sutho is traditional product and farmers make Sutho with traditional skill that is labour intensive and tedious. Therefore farmers only prepare when market price for fresh ginger is low. Dried ginger can be peeled whole, peeled coated whole, split and sliced. All types may be used for oil distillation and oleoresin extraction, but the coated types are the most extensively used. Lack of ginger peeler and the mechanical dryer is the major post-harvest problem. Some processors have been using solar dryers for drying slices which are not good for mass production. Processors are also not getting good ginger slicer machine.
4.3 Ginger powder: Ginger powder is made by pulverizing dry ginger to 50-60 mesh size. The use of ginger powder in Nepal is less and there are limited processors. A small research found that ginger powder can be the best

solution for value addition. First the demand in the world market and Nepal is increasing. Second, ginger powder is convenient for transportation. Because of its land locked geographical position, Nepal is not good at downward stream of supply chain and the transportation cost for fresh ginger and dry ginger is high. 1kg of ginger powder is made up of around 6kg of fresh ginger, so 1 kg transport cost will be exporting 6kg of ginger. Furthermore, powder ginger has less volume and air transport may seem feasible. Third, powder ginger has longer shelf life and can be stored for one and half year, so anywhere in the world, market can be sought. Nepal also imports ginger during off-season as it lacks storage facility and there is power shortage. If powder ginger is made, perennial supply will be possible, ensuring minimal import and stable price. Lastly, soil content and contamination are reduced while drying and processing, ginger powder is more exportable.
4.4 Ginger paste: Ginger is usually made into paste at household level and used in curry etc. Ginger paste is commercially available in the market and mostly imported.
4.5 Ginger candy: Processors manufacturing ginger candy are very limited. Ginger candy is mostly produced by microenterprises run by cooperative. The major problems are inefficient technology and high use of labourers. Besides, the marketing activity is also very limited.
4.6 Ginger oil: Ginger oil is produced by steam distillation of freshly ground dry ginger or fresh ginger peelings. The potential for ginger oil production is limited since quality of the Nashe variety is low due to high fibre content and inadequate farming methods.
4.7 Ginger oleoresin: Ginger oleoresin is obtained by extraction of powdered dry ginger with suitable organic solvents. There are very few industrial units for oleoresin in Nepal. However, the production may present a better opportunity as it is less sensitive to the quality of produce and has widespread uses.
4.8 Ginger squash: Ginger squash is prepared by using fresh ginger mixing with water and preservatives. Ginger squash has short life and the popularity is also very less.

5. Ginger Processing Equipment Suitable for Nepali Market
5.1 Ginger Washing Machine
Ginger spray washing machine adopts high-pressure water flow for washing ginger, having high cleaning capacity and impurities reduction efficiency. Brush type washing and peeling machine integrates the functions of washing and peeling, available for independent cleaning as well as simultaneous cleaning and peeling.

5.2 Ginger Slicing Machine
Ginger garlic slicing machine can cut ginger into slices with high efficiency. The thickness of the slices can be adjusted freely. And the slices have uniform thickness, smooth surface and no breakage.
5.3 Ginger Drying Machine
Hot air circulation drying oven takes advantage of circulated hot air in the oven to get the ginger dried. We have offered drying machines with different capacities like single door hot air drying ovens, double-door hot air ovens and large scale drying ovens to meet customers’s specific demands.
5.4 Ginger Powder Crushing Machine
This machine crushes the dry ginger slice by the impact & grind function of the relative motion between active and fixed fluted discs, and impact between the materials. The fineness can be adjusted by changing different sieves.
5.5 Ginger Paste Making Machine
Ginger paste making machine can cut ginger into paste, having good cutting effect and uniform cutting thickness. The small dimension makes it suitable for household use.

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