Manufacturing of breakfast cereal

Breakfast cereal manufacturing was one of the earliest commercial applications of extrusion cooking technology and remains one of the most widespread.

The first breakfast industry was established in Battle Creek, Michigan, by the Kellogg brothers, Dr. John H, Kellogg filed a patent for production of flaked cereals in 1894, and soon C.W Post invented the first prototype of the Grape Nuts that are still manufactured and sold today.

Plain breakfast cereals may be categorized by the processes through which they pass and which give them distinctive characteristics:. These include:
*Flaked
*Extrusion puffed
*Oven puffed
*Gun puffed
*Shredded
*Hot cereals
*Baked

The manufacture of breakfast cereals involves appropriate selection and combination of raw materials, highly sophisticated production steps, and stringent quality control programs.

Depending on the type of breakfast cereal, the grain will be used in total, or may require further processing which often includes a crushing step of the whole grain between large metal rollers in order to remove the outer layer of bran.

The whole grain or coarse grain fractions are mixed with the rest of the raw ingredients including water in order to be cooked to the required state.
Manufacturing of breakfast cereal