Druzhkovka Food and Flavor Factory

At the end of 2011, a new product appeared on store shelves – the Forward, Shakhtar! In a few months, this product has become a favorite of many Shakhtar fans and continues to gain new fans.

Application of Dalgakiran equipment at the Druzhkovka Food and Flavor Factory

Taste of orange and black

The secret to the new product’s popularity is twofold: high-quality raw materials and the “right” equipment at Druzhkovka, where these seeds are produced.

In November 2011, a new product appeared on store shelves – Forward, Shakhtar seeds. To find out the secret of its popularity, we went straight to the Druzhkovka factory where these seeds are produced.

– “The main sunflower variety we use to produce Forward, Shakhtar seeds is a sweet tooth, ideal for this type of product,” says Volodymyr Sereda, head of the roasting and packaging department. – “It grows in Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

The selection process begins with calibration, which is the separation of large seeds, and sorting by grain thickness. Usually, the calibration is performed on 3.8 mm sieves, but for the Forward, Shakhtar variety, only seeds larger than 4 mm in thickness are selected. Then a special laboratory technician comes to the factory to check the samples of the received batch for compliance with the established standards. For example, according to the standards, their moisture content should not exceed 8-9%, and the seeds should never be, forgive me for being so blunt, gnawed by insects – such batches are sent back without hesitation. And only when it is established that all standards are met, the batch is sent to the workshop for further processing.

The seeds are roasted in special ovens at a temperature of 250-280 degrees for 5-7 minutes. The capacity of each oven is 70 to 200 kg per hour. It is clear that hot seeds should never be packaged.

That is why it is first sent for cooling, then for grinding, cleaned of dust and debris in a special centrifuge, and only then is it ready to go into a familiar orange and black bag.

A standard pack of Forward, Shakhtar weighs about 80 grams, and the permissible error during weighing is no more than 0.4-0.5 g – you must admit that the accuracy is impressive! The automatic packer is capable of producing 70-90 packs per minute, which is enough to fill a typical shop window to capacity.

It would seem that rodents could become one of the main enemies of production, but the factory is skillfully fighting them: special traps and ultrasonic emitters are installed here to scare away pests so that they do not come close to the place where seeds and other delicacies are stored.

And some more statistics. Currently, the Druzhkovka Food and Flavor Factory produces about 2-3 tons of Forward, Shakhtar seeds in one week. However, local experts are confident that in April-May this year they will reach 5-10 tons. Given that one hectare of sunflower can produce 1.5-1.7 tons of seeds, it is easy to calculate that during the peak demand season, about 6 hectares of the highest quality sunflower seeds will be needed to meet the weekly demand of Shakhtar fans!

However, this is not the limit. According to Vyacheslav Boltenko, sales director at Druzhkivka Food and Beverage, orange and black seeds are already one of the best-selling products in the