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SUSTAINABLE  “WATER SAVING”  TECHNOLOGY  FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MAIZE FLOUR  AND DERIVATIVES

 

 

The NIXTAMAL (lett. corn cooked with water and lime to make tortillas ) is  a corn flour whose millenary production dates back to the pre-Columbian  period, where civilizations such as the Maya and the Aztecs cultivated  this cereal to then cook it in alkaline solutions, drain, sun-dry and finally  grind. 
The evolution from this ancestral tradition to craft processes and finally  industrial processes has always aimed at maintaining the original factors  of production:

water - lime - temperature - time.
All this to preserve the quality, taste and originality of the final product ,  which is the essential food base for the indigenous populations of North  and Central America. In addition, the derivatives of this product have long  been receiving increasing attention and interest in new emerging markets  , also thanks to their “gluten free” characterization. 
Today’s industrial production has made it possible to distribute these products on a large scale, but it has had to deal with some basic drawbacks  such as the high consumption of water in the process, the relative  consumption of energy for heating, the difficulty of re-using waste water  after processing and therefore the need, and costs, for their disposal.
OPERA has developed cutting-edge technologies to overcome these  inconveniences, thus making the industrial process highly sustainable.
The result is the maintenance of quality, taste and originality of the final  product , all with a strong reduction in the water required for the process, consequently reduced energy consumption, minimum quantity of lime  used , reduction of cooking times by half , the rest time of a quarter, and  finally zero waste water residue .