Key Learnings from Industrial Visit

Virtual Industrial Visit to Madhav Agro. Foods Pvt. Ltd., a company established in the year 1983 at
Dabhasa, Vadodara, Gujarat who manufacture, exporter, and supplier of varieties of Pickles, Chutneys,
Syrups as well as cooking and culinary pastes ensured learning of significant quality assurance and control
practices that must be maintained by companies in order to indicate their high-end production practices.
The company exports their products to premium brands based in USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
U.K., Japan and Europe. Some of the certifications as required by food processing companies were
highlighted to us as, ISO, HACCP, FSSAI, AEO, and ZED. These certificates guarantee excellent product
quality and material standards to consumers and export channels. Numerous Indian export regulatory
boards for ensuring and maintaining export quality control were touched upon among other things by
Neel Shah, Owner of Madhav Agro. Foods Pvt. Ltd. like, the spices board and APEDA.

Further several food preservation techniques were elucidated to us that may be utilized to extend the
shelf life of food items and improve their exportability. For decreasing spoilage, heat and cold treatment
processes such as canning, freezing, and drying are used. Product-specific techniques like pickling and
salting were elaborated as part of discussion on food preservation techniques.

We were also shown around Madhav Agro Foods Pvt. Ltd.'s packaging section as a part of our virtual
industrial visit, where we saw standardized operating equipment working for efficient and quality pickle
packing in order to keep informational content and boost self-life and transportation flexibility according
to prescribed rules. The packing is done via various equipments like glass jars, plastic jars, pouches,
assorted gift packs and secondary packing. We also learnt of food safety protocols while handling of
products and ensuring germ i.e., bacteria, virus and fungi free environment by ensuring safe practices of
wearing gloves, masks, hear gear et cetera while handling and manufacturing of consumable products.

Food processing factories must adhere to good manufacturing practises, which include elements such as
supervision and training, sanitary facilities and operations, water supply, sewage, and waste management
equipment, and a variety of within-range standard operation methods. This can be ensured by following
three basic principles, explicated below:

• Firstly, in order to maintain the necessary hygienic level of those materials, standard pre-
processing preparation of raw components is required.

• Second, it is vital to keep the entire food/raw material processing process structured as well as
monitor the entire system in order to minimize process loss and retain quality.

• Third, in order to maintain product freshness and increase exportability and shelf life,
standardized packaging and post-process storage techniques must be devised.

Furthermore, it has been seen that, customer focus, leadership, people involvement, process approach,
methodical approach to management, continuous improvement, factual approach to decision making,
and mutually beneficial supplier connections are just a few of the quality control principles that were
elucidated apart from international constraints as a part of certifications from FAO and other regulatory
bodies.