Raisins (dry grapes) locally called Kishmish, are sticky and pulpy. Being produced from different varieties of grapes, they are available in various shapes, sizes, and colours.

Raisins are produced by sun-drying the grapes on the fields or on the racks specially built for drying in the open. During drying, raisins are prone to be affected by foreign material – Dust, sand, stones, twigs, etc. Further, they need to be graded and cleaned as per the customer's requirements. For cleaning and grading, they were required to employ huge manpower which was a time-consuming job. Also, being an exporter, they need to follow strict hygiene standards. 

• Clean Raisins: Post drying, raisins are still connected with the stems, which are to be removed. Also, they are contaminated with sand, stones, and dust which accumulate in the product.
• Graded Raisins: Each raisin has its different sizes; they need to grade it as per the sizes and remove the pulp-less product.
• Less manpower dependency: To grade the product manually, requires a huge number of workers.
• Increased productivity: Owing to manual grading, they were able to process 3 – 4 tons/day, which is too little as per the market demand.
• Hygienic product: Due to manual intervention at various stages of processing and practices being carried out, hygiene becomes a major challenge in the industry.


The nature of the product was hygroscopic and they were previously using another drag conveyor to get sugar granules transferred to their existing mixer, but this system had frequent rope breakage issues and it was not easy for maintenance as there was no provision for easy cleaning.

Learning Objectives

 

• Identify the customer requirement for export of Raisins.
• What are the cost-effective hygiene standards for export of Raisins?
• Highlight the challenges to export Raisins.