How are Lace chips produced in Russian factories made? Let's find out below. Let's start with the fact that their production is designed in such a way that it fully complies with the technologies accepted as the norm in the West. Such snacks have been produced since 1938, and they began to be supplied to Russia in the 90s.
The history of their creation lies in the pride of one of the chefs. In one of the elite American restaurants, a visitor did not like the French fries, he said that they were cut into very thick slices and the offended chef prepared him another dish. I specially cut the potatoes into very thin slices and fried them until crisp. The client happily ate this dish and it was added to the restaurant menu. The whole truth about the production of today's advertised chips.
On designated plantations, a special variety of potatoes for chips is grown, which is why they cannot be prepared at home from ordinary potato tubers.
Cooking steps include:
Three types of Lace chips can be made simultaneously on one plant line.
Many cheap brands have long been replacing potatoes with starch. They cook the chips like baked goods. From the technology above, it became clear what Lays chips are made from. Most of their crispy rings are obtained from potatoes, but special substances are added to them in the form of monosodium glutamate, which increases the shelf life of the chips. Additives are also used for flavor.
The topic of today's report is the PepsiCo plant for the production of Lay's potato chips, which recently opened in the city of Azov, Rostov region. In addition, the plant produces Khrusteam crackers. Let's walk sequentially along the entire production line and look at it in detail.
It is believed that chips originated more than 150 years ago in the United States. Legend has it that in one of the elite American restaurants, a client (railroad magnate Vanderbilt) did not like the restaurant's signature dish, “french fries,” and he returned them to the kitchen, claiming that the potatoes were too thick. The restaurant chef decided to play a trick on the client and cut the potatoes into the thinnest slices and fried them in oil and served them to the table. Surprisingly, the client especially liked the dish, and since then a new dish has appeared on the restaurant menu - chips.
Lay's chips have been produced since 1938. Today, Frito Lay is one of the leading producers of salty snacks both in the world and in Russia. Deliveries of Lay’s chips to Russia began in the mid-90s, and in 2002 the first Frito Lay plant was opened in Kashira, Moscow Region.
Unloading, washing and temporary storage of potatoes
2. Nine 20-ton trucks with potatoes are unloaded here every day. The potatoes are transported along a conveyor belt to a washing machine, where recirculated water is used to clean them. There are three such automatic car washes in the world. It is physically impossible to remove the washing process; everything happens in a closed container. After washing, the potatoes are sent for temporary storage to bins - special containers, from where they are supplied to production as needed. 
Peeling, sorting and cutting potatoes
3. Before the potato tubers enter a special slicing machine, inspectors visually inspect the tubers moving along the belt and, if necessary, remove visible defects. 
4. By the way: Not all potatoes are suitable for making chips. There are so-called chip potato varieties that have a high starch content.
5. All employees undergo periodic medical examinations and have medical records; this is done to ensure that a sick person does not end up at work. In addition, before entering the workshop, everyone must wash their hands. 
6. Potatoes are peeled in periodic abrasive drums. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, after which it is unloaded into the drum. 
7. Direct cutting occurs mechanically due to the rotation of the cone-shaped bottom of the drum. Inside the cutting machine are eight pairs of extremely sharp blades that cut the tuber into thin slices. The thickness of each slice is less than two millimeters. 
Roasting
8. After cutting, the potato slices enter the very “heart” of the chip production line - the frying bath for frying the slices and producing base chips. This equipment, which has no analogues, was created specifically for the PepsiCo plant and cannot be shown. 
9. Thinly sliced potato slices are placed in an oil bath, in which they are fried for three minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius. High-quality oil, like high-quality potatoes, is the basis for the taste of chips. 
10. The plant has improved the recipe using a special blend of vegetable oils, including locally produced high-oliline sunflower oil, which reduces the saturated fat content in the final product by 25%. 
11. Product quality checks are carried out daily at the plant. They check both basic chips just out of the oven and fully packaged bags. 
Adding spices
12. At this stage, special aromatic and flavoring additives are added to the fried potato chips, the basis of which is salt. 
13. Three flavors can be produced on the line at the same time. 
Package
14. By the way: The plant is designed to produce 50 thousand tons of finished products per year. Some fantastic figure, in my opinion.
15. Three conveyors transport ready-made chips to packaging. First, distribution and weighing occurs. 
16. By the way: Please note that there are very few workers along the entire length of the line. It uses modern equipment that operates in a fully automated mode. In addition, it is important that as few people as possible come into contact with the finished product.
17. Weighing machines weigh multiple portions simultaneously and calculate the best weight combination that has the most accurate weight to match the standard and the weight stated on the package. 
18. If you consider that the net weight of one pack is 28 grams, you can imagine the accuracy of the equipment settings. 
19. The weighed portion is unloaded onto the packaging line. 
20. The portion is checked for the presence of foreign impurities (metal detector) and ends up in a bag, which by this time has been prepared by a packaging machine from packaging materials (foil). Before sealing the seam, food grade nitrogen is supplied to the bag, which ensures the required shelf life of the product. Weighing and packaging equipment operates synchronously, at speeds of up to 80 bags per minute. 
21. The packaged bag of chips is delivered to operators who manually place the bags into cardboard boxes. 
22. Boxes of chips are stacked on pallets and transported to the warehouse. 
23. 
There is a line parallel to Production of crackers
24. A mixture of flour and water is fed into the extruder, heated and thoroughly mixed. The crackers come out of the extruder in the form of ropes, which are cut to size by rotating knives. 
25. The next step is to dry the crackers in the oven and place them on the seasoning area. 
26. The packaging line is identical to the one on which chips are produced. 
27. 
28. Weighing takes place in a similar weighing machine, which forms several portions and selects the best combination for sealing in a bag. 
29. Ready-made crackers. 
30. The productivity of one line is 12 tons of finished products per day. 
31. Workers are prohibited from wearing watches and jewelry, manicures and false nails are prohibited, and their hair must be covered with a net so that nothing gets onto the conveyor. 
32. In addition to the taste and visual compliance of the slices with accepted standards, the quality of the packaging is checked here. The seam should be smooth and the pack should open in one movement exactly along the seam, without tears. 
33. 
34. Factory staff. By the way, the production line operates around the clock in three shifts. 
35. 
36. Exterior of the plant. 
37. Bon appetit! 
Many people truly believe that chips are made from potatoes. It’s just cut into thin slices and fried in a special way, that’s all. What's wrong with fried potatoes? After all, we often cook it at home, and it’s very tasty. Of course, some substances are added to the chips to make them tastier and last longer, but this is allowed, right?
Look at this piece of Pringles - what a potato! However, in reality everything is not quite like that...
Photo 1. 
Pringles are one third water.
Photo 2. 
The recipe also includes two-thirds potato flakes.
Photo 3. 
A mixture of one-third water, two-thirds potato flakes and cornstarch is sent on a conveyor belt to the first stop, the press.
Photo 4. 
The press redirects the mixture to another conveyor to compress it.
Photo 8. 
The resulting mixture will fall onto the belt below and go under a huge roller for pressing.
Photo 5. 
The conveyor belt uses four tons of pressure to compress the mixture into a potato sheet, which is then cut.
Photo 6. 
Using oval templates, the chips are cut from a potato sheet and rolled out with a very heavy roller.
Photo 7. 
As they move along the conveyor, the ovals end up on the bottom belt and the excess is removed so they can later be recycled to make even more chips.
Photo 9. 
The ovals remaining on the belt are sent to a mold, where they become concave and are ideal for packaging.
Photo 10. 
Once shaped, the chips are fried for 11 seconds until crisp and easy to stack.
The chips then go to another conveyor belt, where the batch is given a particular flavor.
Photo 11. 
3
A factory employee checks the chips before another conveyor shakes and weighs them for packaging.
Photo 12. 
A weighing mechanism determines how many chips should be in each package, then a special spoon places them into the tube.
Photo 13. 
Photo 14. 
Finally, after the chips are placed in the tubes, a special machine knocks on the lids of the packages so that all the chips take their place and are stacked evenly.
Full video on how Pringles are made:
Speaking on this topic, it is very useful to analyze the chemical composition of chips and how the chemicals from them affect health. I think all caring parents are concerned about what their children eat.
With all the problems plaguing their nation, Americans want their pretty potato snack bags to come with a cancer warning. It turned out that the chips contained a substance - acrylamide, which caused cancer in experiments on rats and mice. According to critics, we are 10 years behind with these standards. The state does not have money for such research, and it is more profitable for manufacturers to make low-quality potato snacks.
In America, billions of dollars are spent on chips, because this is their favorite treat. Although nutritionists warn that the excess salt, oil and acrylamide content of these potato snacks will not do any good, Americans still eat tons of them. There was a case that the California Attorney General, Bill Locker, sued McDonald's and Frito-Lay and 6 other food companies because they produced chips and French fries without warning labels. The text that he suggested that they write on the packages of these potato snacks, it said: “The product contains a chemical that can cause cancer,” according to California law, Locker did everything right, because food manufacturers must warn consumers about the presence of chemicals in food that can cause cancer. tumors.
If Locker wins the case, the attitude of laws towards these products in the United States will change. And in the future, other countries will begin to think about this fact. Labeling of chip bags will be mandatory. The implementation of such a standard in the EU, according to experts, will go without problems, because competitors use it for personal gain to lure consumers. Maybe in Russia we don’t spend billions on these potato snacks, but somewhere up to several hundred million dollars will still be spent. It is unlikely that in the near future we will have legislation that would require labeling of products that are not very good for health.
It is believed that we are 15-20 years behind Western standards. Why is it so bad? This is because we have some standards regarding “ordinary” products, and they are already outdated, and for “fashionable” products there is no specific legislation yet. You may say: “Why not? After all, this is very important in our society.” Only in Article 10 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, there is a paragraph that forces manufacturers to write down the full composition of their products. Of course, many manufacturers are not in the interest of disclosing the full composition of products (for example: flavor enhancer - monosodium glutamate E621, you can find on packaging as flavoring additives or simply a flavor enhancer). Another problem concerns all health products (health products). Many such drugs are not certified, studies have not been conducted to detect side effects, and there is simply no guarantee of positive effects from them. For example, in the West, for one drug to appear on the market, 30 years of research are done on all sorts of side effects, and even then, people are skeptical about this drug. Our people are more trusting, maybe because before under the USSR, medicines were really medicines, or because we have a lower standard of living. The main reason for such phenomena in our country (and not only in our country) is advertising. Nowadays, marketing is so developed that you can sell your own item to you.
But let's return to our topic - that is, to chips. The government should pay more attention to research on such products. Many people eat them and don’t even realize that they are taking a risk.
Natalia Olefirenko from Greenpeace Russia notes that even if there is a law on mandatory labeling of hazardous substances on packaging, not all manufacturers will reveal the truth, and even less so when they come under the eyes of the law. Even the state cannot always take care of our health. This means that only we have the power to take care of our health best.
Chemical composition of chips and French fries
Speaking about the chemical composition of chips and French fries, we will find two dangerous substances in them: acrylamide and glycidiamide. Toxicologists say that the latter is even more dangerous than the former.
Acrylamide is a very dangerous substance, which has shown great harm in experiments on animals. It can cause cancer, cause significant damage to the nervous system and even genes! The worst thing is that along with acrylamide we also eat another harmful chemical - glycidamide. Western scientists, when analyzing the brands of many sold potato snacks, found this substance in 10 types of chips and 3 types of French fries.
They published their results and analysis methods in the English-language Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. It turns out that one kilogram of fried potatoes contains 0.3-1.5 micrograms of glycidamide. Regarding acrylamide, studies have shown that levels of this substance in foods such as potato snacks range between 300 and 600 micrograms per kilogram. At the liver level, acrylamide is converted to glycidamide. And glycidamide is responsible for the carcinogenicity of chips. According to other studies, somewhere around 10% of acrylamide is thus converted into glycidamide.
Don't panic either! It is necessary to improve the industrial process for preparing potato snacks so that the amount of life-threatening chemicals in them is minimal and, if possible, none at all. But even then people will face problems when they abuse chips, because they make them fat!!!
The Swedes are thinking about creating a more advanced line of products for these potato snacks. They want to reduce the amount of acrylamide and glycyamide to the critical level possible. To do this, they recommend using different types of vegetable oil than those used in the industry and strict control over the level of glycidamide in chips.
Can you die from chips?
In England, there was a case where 22-year-old Gina Gauff almost died from eating potato snacks. She did not consume anything other than these products for three years in a row. She had no problem eating 15 bags of chips a day. She was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. When determining the diagnosis, doctors realized that the causes of the disease were consumption of fatty, high-calorie foods such as potato snacks. Her gallbladder was inflamed and required its removal. The operation was very complex and lasted four and a half hours. The gallbladder grew so large that it looked like a tennis ball and could “explode” at any moment. She started with one bag for breakfast, then moved on to 2 bags of chips and so on. She didn't like other food. In addition to gall bladder problems, she suffered from obesity and jaundice.
Gina started eating so many potato snacks after she lost her job. To get rid of depression, she ate chips. Although her family talked about the health hazards of these products, she did not listen to them and continued to eat them. She did not assess the possible risks and almost died.
So this case suggests that chips can be addictive. Now, I think I’ve convinced you about the dangers of chips and why such packaging should be labeled “Harmful to Health.”
sources
How are chips made?
Chips have been around for a very long time. They have been around for over 150 years. This was the first time this product was produced in the USA. As legend has it, railroad magnate Vanderbilt once dined in an American restaurant. He didn't like the French fries, the restaurant's specialty. He returned it to the chef and stated that the potatoes were very thick. The cook, in response, made fun of the tycoon and cut the vegetable into the thinnest slices. After frying them in oil, he served the dish to the client. His surprise knew no bounds when the visitor was delighted after trying the slices. The dish was added to the restaurant menu and called "chips." Since 1938, the production of chips has been established. Today we'll talk about how Lay's chips are made.
At the Frito Lay plant that makes Lay's chips, 9 trucks are unloaded every day. Each of them contains 20 tons of potatoes. It passes along a conveyor belt and enters the washing machine. Cleaning is done with recirculated water. There are only three such sinks in our world. The entire washing process takes place in a closed container, so it is impossible to film it. Thoroughly washed potatoes are placed in bins for temporary storage. It lies in these special containers until it is needed in production. Peculiarities:
Abrasive drums clean the tubers with periodic action. First, the required amount of potatoes is loaded into the weighing hopper, and after that it is unloaded into the drum. Potatoes are cut mechanically. This is facilitated by the rotation of the cone-shaped bottom of the drum. The slicing machine has 16 sharp blades. They cut the tubers into slices, the thickness of which does not exceed two millimeters.
The chopped potatoes go into the frying bath. After this bath, the slices become base chips. The equipment used for roasting is unique throughout the world.
All thin slices are fried in an oil bath for three minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. For frying, not only high-quality potatoes are used, but also high-quality vegetable oil. The final product has 25% less saturated fat, due to the fact that the plant has developed a special recipe from a mixture of several vegetable oils, including high-oleic oil. Not a day goes by at the plant without checking product quality. Everything is subject to inspection: basic chips, those that just came out of the oven, and those that are already packaged.
Special flavoring and aromatic additives are added to fried chips. The most basic of them is salt. Chips of three different flavors can go along one line. The chips pass through three conveyors and are packaged. They are distributed according to tastes and weighed. Weighing machines determine the weight of several portions at once. They are so accurate that they can easily calculate the weight of 28 grams, i.e. one pack of chips.
Each portion undergoes mandatory control. It is checked for the presence of foreign impurities. A metal detector is used for this. At this time, the packaging machine prepares a foil packaging bag, where the clean portion falls. Each package contains food grade nitrogen to ensure the desired shelf life of the product. All equipment works very quickly and allows you to produce 80 bags of chips per minute.
The heroine of Nadezhda Rumyantseva - Tosya from the legendary film "Girls" could immediately list 15 potato dishes: fried, boiled, mashed potatoes, French fries, pie, pies and pancakes, roll, casserole, stewed with prunes, stewed with bay leaf and pepper, young boiled with dill and so on. We want to talk about one more product, perhaps the most popular in our time - potato chips.
Bigpiccha had the opportunity to see with my own eyes absolutely the ENTIRE production process of Lay’s chips - from harvesting to shipment to retail chains. And now we can say with confidence that we know everything about chips! Well, almost everything :)
(Total 20 photos)
But first, a little history. Lay's chips, the production process of which we actually studied, have been produced since 1938. Today, the PepsiCo company (they own the Lay’s brand since 1965) is one of the leading producers of salty snacks both in the world and in Russia. Deliveries of Lay’s chips to Russia began in the mid-90s, in 2002 the first plant was opened in Kashira near Moscow, and in 2010 the company’s second plant was opened in the city of Azov (Rostov region).
1. Bigpiccha arrived with an inspection to one of the agricultural enterprises in the Rostov region.
2. The first and, perhaps, the most important problem that the PepsiCo company faced when opening the production of chips in Russia was the lack of raw materials. Just 10-15 years ago, potato chips were not grown in Russia at all. Farmers supplied only traditional varieties, which were suitable only for cooking, frying, starch production, etc.
3. Few people know this, but all over the world only 7 types of potatoes are suitable for making chips, and only three of them are grown in Russia - “Lady Rosetta”, “Hermes” and “Saturn”. What is the difference between regular potatoes and chips? The latter is much denser in structure, and there is practically no sugar in it. To make it completely clear, when fried, such potatoes do not fall apart, do not darken, but acquire a pleasant golden color. Therefore, if you decide to try to make chips at home from ordinary table potatoes, then it is likely that you will end up with just fried potatoes, and not crispy golden slices :)
By the way, did you know that one kilogram of potatoes produces 300 grams of chips? That is, in a regular pack of Lays there are approximately three potato tubers.
4. How are these potato chips grown? Being the largest industrial potato processor in our country, the company initially set a course for maximum localization of production and, since 2002, began implementing its own agricultural program aimed at supporting Russian agricultural producers. And the fact that our agriculture needs to be supported is probably beyond any doubt among any of you.
5. What is the support? In fact, this is a whole range of measures: firstly, farmers are provided with financial assistance (through interest-free loans for the purchase of seed, necessary equipment for growing and storing potatoes).
6. Secondly, assistance is provided with the purchase of high-quality imported potato seeds (as you understand, a very important aspect on which a lot depends). There is a whole team of agricultural specialists who advise farmers in the fields: how to plant, grow, how to properly harvest and preserve the crop, that is, they cover the entire range of necessary work. As a result, the average yield from PepsiCo's potato suppliers is 25 tons per hectare, which is almost twice as high as the national average of 13 tons per hectare. Surprised? We are not very good 🙂
7. To ensure that the crop receives as little damage as possible during harvesting, a special device is used - electronic potatoes. This “potato spy” goes straight from the ground (where caring farmers first place it) into the harvester. It is thanks to this device that potato pickers determine whether everything is in order with the crop during harvesting or whether the machine needs to be adjusted so that the potatoes “do not get unnecessary bruises.”
8. Today, more than 85% of potatoes supplied to the company’s factories are grown in Russia. Every year the company purchases more than 250 thousand tons!
9. And, of course, it’s worth mentioning about people. After all, as you know, no matter how much money you invest, if there are no qualified personnel on the ground, then all your efforts will be in vain. That is why PepsiCo developed a program to support agricultural higher education, which started back in 2008. As part of this program, students are encouraged to study agricultural specialties, and the best of them are given grants.
10. Then the harvested potatoes are brought to the factory, where they are unloaded in such a cunning way. Nine 20-ton trucks of potatoes are unloaded here every day! And up to 50 thousand tons of chips are produced here per year (that’s about 4,000 African elephants).
11. It then travels along a conveyor belt to a washing machine, where recirculated water (water that is reused in the process cycle) is used to clean it. And after washing, it goes for temporary storage in bins - special containers, from where it is supplied to production as needed.
12. The 3 main stages are clearly shown: cleaning, cutting and frying. As you can see, everything is as simple as possible and nothing superfluous. Absolutely natural product.
13. Immediately after cutting, the potato slices are frying to form basic chips.
14. Once cooked, the chips take on one of Lay’s unique flavors. By the way, the brand’s portfolio includes both international bestsellers that are sold all over the world (salt, cheese, bacon, green onions) and flavors that can only be bought in Russia (crab, pickled cucumber, porcini mushrooms with sour cream).
