IJUP08 - Universidade do Porto

Product Engineering – Application of vanillin in alimentary food
paste industry
A. Vasconcelos, B. Moura, L. Almeida and S. Couto
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal.
Vanillin is the chemical substance accountable for the vanilla aroma and it is also one of
the most used aromatic compounds in alimentary industry. This compound can be obtained
either by natural way or synthetically. In the sphere of Product Engineering an innovation
product has been developed in alimentary pastes industry - vermicelli vanilla cinnamon,
whose benchmark [1] would be the common vermicelli. The production at a pilot scale
showed that it would really be an attractive innovation and the economical plan revealed
that this would be practicable in economical terms.
The experiences were realized in a pilot scale, by means of mixing about 100g of semolina
of hard wheat [2] (which is the unique ingredient common to benchmark [1] ) and water, with
1 – 3g of cinnamon and different volumes of vanillin solution (between 1ml and 10ml).
The obtained paste was pressed and cut in an extrusion machine. At last, it was dried in a
stove at about 50°C.
Supposing that our product should be made in a well – known enterprise in the market, we
made an economical and marketing analysis. With the obtain results, it was made the
design of a package (Fig.1) that should arise the public interest in general.
After the experience in a pilot scale had been realized, we concluded that vermicelli with
about 3 – 5 ml of vanilla solution per 100g of semolina would be the tastiest. The market
study has showed that this new concept of vermicelli should be well accepted by the
public, and the economical analysis revealed that the innovation should be profitable [3] .
References:
[1] Milaneza, www.milaneza.pt, accessed in 28 th November 2007.
[2] www.ama-massas.com/massasfr.htm, accessed in 23 th November 2007.
[3] Vasconcelos A., Moura B., Almeida L., Couto S., Vanilina – da Inovação ao Design, internal
full report for the discipline of Product Engineering of the Integrated Master’s in Chemical
Engineering from FEUP, 2007.
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