Automatic Soymilk Plant: An initiative for doubling income of small/medium entrepreneurs

SoybeaAutomatic Soymilk Plant: An initiative for doubling income of small/medium entrepreneursn, an environment-friendly grain legume and a major source of protein, oil and health, helps to promote the phytochemicals for human nutrition and livestock feed around the globe. The Soymilk is essentially a water extract of soybeans. The basic steps of preparation involves selection of soybeans, adding water, wet or hot grinding and separation of soymilk from fiber (okra), cooking to inactivate lipoxyygenase and trypsin inhibitors, formulation and fortification and packaging of the soymilk.

The ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal and M/s Royal Plant Services, Delhi developed an automatic soymilk plant of 100 l/h capacity. The features of the Soymilk Plant includes feeding and grinding unit, storage tanks, boiler unit, cooker, separator, pneumatic tofu press and control panel, etc. The grinding system consists of top hopper, feeder control plate, bottom hopper and grinder.  The soy slurry coming from grinder is collected in storage tank and pumped to the cooker by screw pump assembly. The boilers of 12 kW heaters and cooker are connected by the automatic pressure valve and releases steam easily to the cooker at desired pressure and temperature. The feed rate is controlled at 20 kg/h. The steam pressure of 490 kPa and temperature of 150 ºC is released to the cooker. When the pressure and temperature of the cooker reached to 2.5 kg and 120 ºC, respectively and maintained for 3 min., the automation valve opened and soy slurry pumps the separator. The separator separated the desired soymilk and okara. The developed automatic soy milk plant produces very good quality milk.

M/s Shree Shyama Kali Enterprises, Kamre, Ranchi has installed the Automatic Soymilk Plant for processing of the soybean for milk and tofu. They produce approximately 70 liters of soymilk and 10 kg of tofu per alternate day in a year. The cost of selling of the soymilk and tofu are Rs. 40 / litre and Rs. 150-200 / kg. Considering the cost of production of soymilk and tofu to be Rs. 15 / litre and Rs. 50 / kg, the net benefit from the enterprises is Rs. 3,18,500/- and Rs. 2,73,000/- per year from soymilk and tofu, respectively.

Hence, the overall benefit from the soymilk plant for both soymilk and tofu enterprises is Rs. 5, 91,500 per annum besides, providing the employments to five persons, comforts in operations and minimum man handling during the production process.

M/s Agro Soymilk Organic Plants Gambhawol, District Hosiarpur, Punjab installed the Plant to process Soymilk, beverages and tofu and produce approximately 100 litres of soymilk and 60 kg of tofu per alternate day.

The selling price of soymilk and tofu are Rs. 45 / litre and Rs. 120-150 / kg. The benefits earned by the entrepreneurs for selling soy milk and tofu are Rs. 5,46,000/- and Rs. 7,64,400/-, respectively. Hence, the overall profit gained by the entrepreneurs from the soymilk and tofu is Rs. 13,10,400/- per annum that plays an important roles in improving the lifestyle of the people.

M/s LovSoy Food Products limited, Bangalore has installed the Automatic Soymilk plant to process Soybean for milk, tofu and powder. They are producing approximately 20 Tonnes of soymilk powder and 3-4 Tonnes of tofu per annum and successfully running the enterprises. M/s Manthan Soya Products, Rajsamand, Rajasthan has established the Automatic Soymilk Plant and produced about 50 litres of soymilk and 25 kg of tofu per alternate day. The entrepreneur receiving a net s net profit of Rs. 4,95,000/- per annum by selling the Soymilk and Tofu.

(Source: ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal)