Of course, the quality of the product depends on the quality of the ingredients that we use to produce it, the perfect amount of each ingredient and the time.
1. Ingredients
The best ingredients come from many different places worldwide, and they are exclusively chosen by its quality, consistency and nutritional value. Each ingredient has to prove that follows all these three premises before to be accepted at the factory, this means that every single time that the merchancy arrives aleatory samples are taken and they are analysed to guarantee that they fulfil the nutritional profile that we are looking for, once we have analysed it and the result was good, we unload it. They are stored in a fresh and dry place until they are needed for production.
Every supplier of primary material has to follow the same rules and homologations as for human consumption, which is from where our ingredients come from. We also look that, as far as possible, all the primary materials come from national producers.
2. Weight and mix
Each recipe is stored in a central informatic system; the ingredients are weighed and sent to a big mixing camera, where they are mixed smoothly. To avoid any change, the recipes are fixed and the scales are tested regularly to ensure accuracy.
3. Grinding
Next step is to grind and pre-mix all the ingredients and the result is the grinding, which comes to a similar texture than the cooking flour. They are mixed once again and the most delicate ingredients are added, as vitamins and minerals. At this point, we have an homogeneous mixing of around 50 ingredients, that after are sent to be cooked.
A standard diet contains around 15 nutrients, while a “Super Premium” as Lenda is made with much more, each one of them are useful and functional inside the recipes and it’s important to pay attention to the amount and the diversity of the nutrients.
4. Pre-conditioning
The first stage of cooking is about conditioning the mixture. Steam and water is added to the grinding in a big camera with spinning paddles, like a giant blender. The mixture is well mixed until most of the starch molecules are pumped and are completely hydrated. At this step, what we did is to homogenize and get the mixture ready.
5. Extrusion
The last step of the cooking process only takes 30 seconds, but it means more than half of the process. The grinding has to pass through a large camera with a lathe that turns around and expels the mixture through small holes. These holes, with different sizes, are the ones that are going to shape the croquet as we want. Pressure inside of this camera is very high and the temperature is uniform, like this, the massive decrease of pressure when it comes out makes it expand and to get the spongy and after it gets cutted. These smooth and light croquettes are analysed to check the shape, color, size and density, before to be sent to the next step.
