ABSTRACT

Custard powder is a powdery meal for Nigerians especially those in the urban areas. Due to its aesthetic look, good taste and short time of preparation, the product have found place on many breakfast tables. As a result of the continuous rural-urban drift and the eating habits of most urban dwellers in Nigeria, this product will hereby continue to command high demand. An investment into this line of production is definite yield for great returns.

INTRODUCTION
The word custard comes from crustade which is a tart with crust. Example, which include crustade in the form of cury. By the 16th century, custard was made more as individual dishes. In modern times, the name custard is sometimes applied to starch thickened preparations like Birds custard. Custard powder is variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk. Custard recipe is a range of preparation based on cooked milk and egg mixtures. Most commonly, custard refer to a dessert or dessert sauce such as vanilla custard, chocolate custard and milk custard. But custard basis are also used for quiches and other savory foods: A quiche is a combination of milk or cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, sometimes flour, corn starch or gelatin is also added. However, Industrial custard production is based on either liquid milk or skimmed milk powder, modified starch and a stabilization system for custard with egg yellow content.

HOMEMADE CUSTARD PRODUCTION PROCESS

Raw materials used in the production of custard are 1. Egg yellow [yellowish when mixed]
2.

Orange color milk flavor

3. corn flour [the primary raw material]

4.

5. salt [Acts as a preservative] PROCEDURES: 1. Get a bowl, a flat plate and a spoon. 2. Pour half painter of corn flour separately into a bowl.
3.

Bring out a spoon of corn flour and put into a separate flat plate and add a small quantity of egg yellow [half spoonful] followed by the orange color. Add a desired quantity of milk flavor and a very small quantity of salt into the same flat plate. The salt acts a preservative. Mix gently and very well for proper mixture. Add orange color and egg yellow again to get the desired color. After proper stirring, pour the mixtures into the separate bowl containing the corn flour. Start mixing all together using your wash and dry hands for proper circulation.

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Bring another plate and add a small quantity of the mixtures in the bowl. Add a little water to check if the desired color is gotten. If it is not, keep adding egg yellow and milk flavor in adequate plate and mixing until the desired color and flavor is obtained or optimality is attained.

9.

PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF CUSTARD POWDER.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 2.

fig. 3.

Fig. 5.

Fig.6.

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Fig.8.

THE PREPARATION OF CUSTARD MEAL

1. Boil water using kettle. 2. Put 5 spoonful or more into a bowl. 3. Pour small quantity of water into it and stir properly.
4.

Slowly pour the 89oc hot water into the stirred custard powder (at No 3)

5. Leave for 2minutes, before stirring.

6. Finally add your sugar to taste. 7. Then, save for consumption.

PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF PREPARATION

Fig.1.

Fig. 2.

Fig.3.

IMPORTANCE/FUNCTION OF RAW MATERIAL S Milk flavor: This provides the aromatic flavor of the custard product. Orange color: It provides the color desired property of the custard powder. Salty: acts as a preservative agent to the product. INDUSTRIAL CUSTARD POWDER PROCESSING PLANT The raw materials for processing custard powder are: 1. Corn flour 2. Arrow root starch 3. Food colors 4. Essence

The raw materials are widely available and can be obtained 100% from our local market. A small scale for this project consists of the following machinery and equipment. 1. Electric oven 2. Milling/grinding machine 3. Mixers 4. Dryers 5. Weighing instruments etc. All the machines and equipment can be procured form our local fabricators. LARGE SCALE PRODUCTION OF CUSTARD POWDERS: Production of custard powders takes the following stages: 1. Drying- The ingredients for the custard powder are dried in a dryer and electric oven is used in the drying process. 2. The dried ingredients are then poured into the milling machine for grinding into powdered form as finished product.
3.

The products are measured and packaged in either a 450gramme plastic/tin containers or packed into polyethylene bags of various sizes and sealed before sending to the market.

This project can be located in any part of the country where there are abundant/adequate supplies of corns and other raw material. The environment should be healthy and free from any form of pollution.

INDUSTRIAL SALES ESTIMATE BASED ON RESEARCH In a manufacturing industry, investment cost for set up this project is estimated at about N700,000, this amount can be sealed down or increased depending on the financial position of the promoters. The machinery in consideration has a capacity of producing 250,000 unit of the 450gramme per annum, working at its hours per shift of 250 working days. Assuming a wholesaler price of N35 per unit, this will give revenue of 8.75 million /annum. A conservative pretax profit of 35% or 3.06 million is reliable in the 1st year of production. The viability of this project is not in doubt considering its high turn over and envisaged profit margin. Sales outlet for this product include

1. Super market 2. Catering outfit. 3. The open market and appointment of sales agent. A high standard of hygiene and good packaging makes the product sells fast. This product stands a good chance of attracting finance from the bank, where individuals or cooperate bodies are assisted with funds from N500, 000 to well over N50million. A well packaged feasibility report is a pre-requisite to securing finances for the project.

APPLICATION OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING TECHNIQUE

Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design improvement and installation of the integrated system of resources. Its prime objective is to increase productivity by eliminating waste and non value added operation, this, improving the effective utilization of resources. Value analysis:

This technique in industrial engineering ensures that minimum costs are built into the produced and provide required functions at the minimum cost (hence help to enhance the worth of product) With the knowledge of the value analysis, we ensured that unnecessary or non valued operations or ingredients are not used. In doing this, cost of production is minimized, thereby, making the product very affordable for every statue of customers to demand.

Product in Planning and Control This involves the planning for the resources, proper scheduling and controlling production activities to ensure the height quality, quantity of product at pre determined time and pre-established cost PPC includes the Investigation, co-ordination and evaluation of manufacturing capabilities and requirements than ensure timely production of projects through optimum use of facilities; we really put the technique into consideration and this can be judged from the different techniques of PPC Scheduling: This involves the setting, the starting and completing dates for production process of product in order to ensure delivery on or before the due date.

Before the production process took place, we put head together and drew out our plans on how to make a successful production. Thereafter, we set the dates to achieve the plans. On doing this, we, the trusted Group was able to deliver the produce and report on the appropriate date.

OPERATION RESEARCH TECHNIQUE The aids to obtain an optimal solution to the problems based on the set objective and constraints imposed on problem. One of the operation research techniques we used is; Simulation: To obtain the product to produce, we made some simulations on our area of concentration. Such questions like: what will happen when theres scarcity of pap?, What if majority of the consumers are poor? Were asked. This simulation provided us, the mind to make a good decision.