1 week ago
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The Kerala Agricultural University has received a patent for an ‘apparatus for breaking cocoa pod’ to extract cocoa beans. At present, cocoa breaking and bean extraction from crust pods are done manually by using machete or sickle, which is a labour-intensive method.
This is a strenuous task apart from the large labour requirement and time consumed during the operation. Also it damages the bean, making it unsuitable for fermentation, resulting in low quality beans. An attempt was made to develop a cocoa pod breaker to eliminate the drudgery in manual cocoa pod breaking, avoid injury to workers, increase efficiency and to ensure high quality products.
Team members
The work was carried out under the ICAR AICRP project on post-harvest engineering and technology functioning at the Kelappaji College of Engineering and Technology, Tavanur. Rajesh G.K., V. Srikanth and Santhi Mary Mathew were in the team, who led the research.
The apparatus consists of a hopper, metallic roller assembly (four set of rollers), chute, rotating cylindrical strainers, frame assembly, prime mover and pulleys, metallic roller assembly defining and inlet to receive cocoa pod and an outlet to provide broken cocoa pod and cocoa beans.
The process
Cocoa fruit is fed manually into the breaker unit through the hopper. Gap between the rollers is set in such a way that the cocoa beans are not damaged during the pod-breaking process. Rotation of strainer separates the cocoa beans from broken cocoa pod and placenta, which are passed through the pores of the strainer and collected at the bottom. The empty pods remain above the strainer and get separated at the other end. The average capacity and breaking efficiency of cocoa pod breaker is 550 kg/h and 95-98% respectively. Bean damage percentage is 0.5 %.
The mechanical method of breaking cocoa reduces work of the farmers and thereby encourages people to engage in farming. Also its widespread adoption promises to revolutionise the cocoa industry, according to the KAU sources.
