Podcast
Episode 11: Virginia Park Foods
How much does water matter to a Director of Food Safety, Quality and Compliance? Tune in to find out – Mohammad Hossain of Virginia Park foods joins us in this episode.
Presenters
Today I am joined by Mohammad Hossain, the Director of Food Safety, Quality and Compliance at Virginia Park Foods based in California. Virginia Park Foods manufactures gluten-free certified pasta. In this episode, Mohammad talks about oven drying, moisture content, water activity, and his hopes of building a culture of food safety. Let's hear what he has to say on Water In Food.
Transcript
Zachary Cartwright (00:00):
I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is Water In Food.
Mohammad Hossain (00:03):
You know that drying is the most difficult and critical step to control in the pasta production process. Water activity is our CCP, critical control points and moisture is a critical quality point, you need to make a food safety culture.
Zachary Cartwright (00:18):
Water has been called the luck of the planet by Daniel Burstyn and its impact and significance are evident everywhere in the foods that we eat. Every year, billions of dollars are spent by food manufacturers to move water in and out of food products. As a food scientist, I am on a mission to understand how this can be done better. Today I am joined by Mohammad Hossain, the Director of Food Safety, Quality and Compliance at Virginia Park Foods based in California. Virginia Park Foods manufactures gluten-free certified pasta. In this episode, Mohammad talks about oven drying, moisture content, water activity, and his hopes of building a culture of food safety. Let's hear what he has to say on Water In Food.
Zachary Cartwright (01:02):
Hi, welcome to Water In Food. We're quite excited to have Mohammed today from Virginia Park Foods. So Hi Mohammad, thank you for being a guest. Why don't you say hello and then tell us who you are and who you're working with?
Mohammad Hossain (01:18):
Hello, hi. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to join the podcast. My name is Mohammad Hossain, I work for Virginia Park Foods. Actually, it's a part of the Banza LLC and I am the Director of Food Safety, Quality and Compliance. And I have been in this industry almost 12 years, food industry and I started this company in 2018. I completed my degree in Food Science from London South Bank University in the UK and I did my BS in agriculture from Bangladesh actually. And I did a lot of professional courses like HACCP or PCQI, food microbiology, and, yeah.
Zachary Cartwright (02:11):
How did you get interested in the food industry? When did you decide that that was the career path that you wanted to take?
Mohammad Hossain (02:22):
Actually, I'm a foodie, I love food. So when I was in the UK and I was thinking to do some courses and actually I took admission in Postharvest Technology as horticulture actually, but later I thought, "No, it's better to go like the food industry." And somehow it changed my mind and took admission actually MSc in Food Safety and Control, yeah.
Zachary Cartwright (02:56):
And you said you're a foodie, what are some of your favorite foods or your favorite meals?
Mohammad Hossain (03:02):
I am from Bangladesh so people say Indian food, actually not like it's not Indian and Bangladeshi food is almost the same. So I can cook so many good dishes and I can cook also some different countries' food actually. So I love to eat food, I love to cook. Yeah, and I also cook sometimes in my company, in here and when I used to work in Hello Fresh as a food safety manager, that time we had a kitchen and I cook food sometimes.
Zachary Cartwright (03:39):
What was your role at Hello Fresh? What did you do there?
Mohammad Hossain (03:43):
I was a food safety manager in Richmond, San Francisco.
Zachary Cartwright (03:51):
And now you're the Director of Food Safety, Quality and Compliance at Virginia Park Foods?
Mohammad Hossain (03:57):
Yeah, you're right.
Zachary Cartwright (03:59):
And what's your favorite part of your job now?
Mohammad Hossain (04:06):
To be honest with you, this is my really interesting area. I watch webinars, I go to the IFSQN, I always see the FDA side. So I make these companies all, we are SQF, food safety, and quality certified. Well, we had an audit, we scored 98% as excellent. And I make all their program like SOPs, SSOPs. I also churn in the sanitation actually and like some lab procedures, preventive control plan. So everything actually I wrote, all the company policy procedures and the safety and quality and the quality is always a continuous process, it never ends. So, and rules also changing so you need to cope with what other similar industry, what they are doing or the government changing so, yeah.
Zachary Cartwright (05:16):
Yes.
Mohammad Hossain (05:16):
It never ends.
Zachary Cartwright (05:19):
Yes. Seems like you always have to be on your toes and ready for changes, whether they're new rules or regulations.
Mohammad Hossain (05:26):
Yeah.
Zachary Cartwright (05:27):
You always have to be on top of everything. What a-
Mohammad Hossain (05:29):
Yeah, like-
Zachary Cartwright (05:29):
Oh, go ahead.
Mohammad Hossain (05:31):
Like SQF, there was an Edition 8.1, now SQF has an Edition 9 so you need to change everything. So all the changing happening.
Zachary Cartwright (05:42):
What would you say is the most challenging part of your role?
Mohammad Hossain (05:49):
Challenging? Actually, this company is new, when I started the company was not policy, we heard that there were some SOPs yeah, and I wrote all the programs and it's not like the programs you need to make a food safety culture. So it's not hard to write all the program, HACCP plan, people like me experienced but through actually the food safety culture. So that is the most challenging part because people from a different culture there are some different practices. You need to comply with the food safety culture and healthy standards whatever you say you have to do it. So that was, I can say some challenging because people react a different way. Like you are doing something maybe a different way and someone suddenly changes it, you don't like to change. So sometimes you need to be very diplomatic, you need to know and sometimes it's also come from the management level. So it's not that easy sometimes.
Zachary Cartwright (07:10):
Yeah, it's hard to please everybody but-
Mohammad Hossain (07:12):
Yeah, you're right.
Zachary Cartwright (07:13):
That's why they hired you, Mohammad, you'll get it. Okay.
Mohammad Hossain (07:17):
And I have the full support. Actually, our brand is a Banza, so they are doing a lot of research actually, the corn oil also like in California, UC Davis most probably. So they spend a good amount of money actually because they want to make this brand and I think we are the fast rapid growing brands of Banza.
Zachary Cartwright (07:44):
And what are some of the challenges that you face that are related to water activity and moisture content? Why are those things important to your products and your process?
Mohammad Hossain (07:58):
Yeah, that's actually very important. We test water activity also we take moisture. And moisture is like the water content as all we know and in simple and water activities like the water, free water and it has a critical role actually. So we check the moisture from different locations like press, pre dryer and dryer and we check the water activity from final stage actually after drying and water activities are CCP, critical control points and moisture is a critical quality point. A pasta is a process like extruding oil and you can see like we are running super fast so our moisture level is like 12%, finished product moisture.
Mohammad Hossain (09:04):
And every stage there is a range like in press, there is some particular range, pre dryer, there is a range and upper dryer, that is the final product actually so that shouldn't be more than 12% and the water activity is a 0.60. So we need to monitor it all the time, we are monitoring the previous every two hours but the problem is like we're reading the HACCP meter So it takes to give you a reading like 15 to 20 minutes. So if the moistures are high, if the moisture is really high then it's out of specification. So like within 15 minutes you are passing lots of product so that's why for us it's always better to monitor the moisture even every 30 minutes or like every 45 minutes so that way we don't have that much wasted product. We know the parameter like settings point, if you pass through that setting point so there's a high probability you can get that it's a specification moisture and water I think but still if we monitor frequently that's really good for us otherwise, the way we can comply with our specifications, correct specifications.
Zachary Cartwright (10:39):
Are you monitoring water more frequently now? Is this something that you've increased recently? And how are you setting your parameters? How do you set your critical points and how do you know what those limits are?
Mohammad Hossain (10:58):
For moisture especially if you go to the other pasta like a Barilla and also if you see industrial practice, so their range is like 12.5 to 13% so the maximum is like... I'm talking about the finished product, 13% maximum moisture level but our specification is like 12%. And what our activity ours is 0.60. Because if your water activity is like 0.60 or below there is no microbial proliferation. So that is a CCP that's why.
Zachary Cartwright (11:39):
I see.
Mohammad Hossain (11:40):
And so that is the reason the moisture is like that level like that. So industrial practices like 12.5 to 13% but though we have the below than that like 12%. So we make the specification based on the industrial practice also some are scientific literature.
Zachary Cartwright (12:04):
And what types of products are you making? Are you making a wide range of different types of pasta? Do you only make gluten-free pasta? And what is the focus for you?
Mohammad Hossain (12:17):
We are a dedicated gluten-free facility. So our main raw material is chickpea flour, the power of chickpea. So we don't use wheat flour and any gluten content, we don't use that. And we are GFC certified so I think the USA 21 CFR 100, 100, 1.9 most probably if you declare the gluten-free it should be like, your product it should be like less than 20 PPM gluten but GFC standard is like 10 or less than 10 PPM so they are very stringent. So we are GFC certified that we are gluten-free certified and we make like long roots, short, long roots it's like spaghetti, angel hair, linguine, short roots like rotini, rigatoni, there are will also shells, elbows, jemmying then a lot of different chefs actually.
Zachary Cartwright (13:29):
Yeah.
Mohammad Hossain (13:30):
We also make the rice that is actually chickpea rice. You can see garlic rice, ginger rice, the flavored rice, also plain chickpea rice. So the main ingredient, 90% is chickpea.
Zachary Cartwright (13:48):
And out of all of these products that you just listed, which of these products are your favorite? Or at least your favorite to work on?
Mohammad Hossain (13:58):
I love mac and cheese and.
Zachary Cartwright (14:06):
No, who doesn't? And as far as 2021 goes what goals do you have? Maybe your personal goals at work and also your company's goals. Is there anything that you are working towards?
Mohammad Hossain (14:20):
Yeah. If you ask my personal goal obviously, I want to go for some more training and actual always I try to and I have to learn with the Spanish as well but I am trying. And I go to the IFSQN also is there any new course materials I think I need to know, I need to learn, I'll go for that. And the company goal is like company's growing so the production will be like more than double next year. And currently, we're checking moisture and water activity two hours every and as you said, we got the AQUALAB 3. So I'm planning to make it from next year, every hour so that we can closely monitor moisture and water activity and if anything is like out of the specification we can catch it instantly.
Mohammad Hossain (15:25):
So that will most probably give us less shrinkage, less wastage of the product and more quality product. All our QC basically is HACCP certified from NC State University also Cornell did GMP courses. So I think that you can find the rare company, even the bigger company they have all the QC, their GMP certified like from the third party as the HACCP certified. So I provide that, everybody training from the third party. And my senior management is open for training actually like they said, "Mohammed it's up to you. So don't worry about that how much money it takes if you want to give them training, give them training." And also want to provide some on PCQI training, right now I am the only one person, PCQI so maybe one or two-person I'll send the training next year. And we are planning to also do more analytical testing like maybe fat analysis, ash analysis.
Mohammad Hossain (16:43):
Right now we are checking gluten, we are checking moisture, we are checking water activity but slowly maybe we are planning to do some more analytical testing that might happen next year. And also we are planning, though we have an approved supplier list. And I am also planning to check allergen, for this may be random so we are going to buy the test kit. Now, sometimes I send to the third party lab just for verification purpose. Though supplier they are great actually, no complaint but even we got honored too when QC suggested the found gluten and we visited the batch. So we are going to be more robust next year. Yeah, there a lot of other plans most probably not that I can remember.
Zachary Cartwright (17:40):
Lots of goals. It's good to have lots of goals though. And I want to come back to something that you said, you said that you're using an AQUALAB 3, this is a total moisture analyzer that can give you water activity and moisture content in one minute. So it's very fast, it's designed to be used in process. What type of value is that going to add to your team to be able to get such a quick reading and then be able to adjust your machine settings so that you can avoid, I think you said shrink of your pasta?
Mohammad Hossain (18:17):
Yeah.
Zachary Cartwright (18:18):
So what kind of value is that to you? How often do you see shrink now? Or do you have problems that are related to water? And how does having a faster measurement help you?
Mohammad Hossain (18:29):
You know that drying is the most difficult and critical step to control in the pasta production process. The objective of drying is to lower the moisture content of the pasta from approximately 31% to 12 to 13% like we do 12% some company they do 13% so that the finished product will be hard, retain shape, and store without spoiling. And our drying operation uses a pre-humidity dryer immediately after the extrusion to prevent the pasta from sticking together and pre drying hardens the outside surface of the pasta while keeping the inside soft and plastic. So also use the final dryer actually. So we have like a press, pre dryer and dryer and so we have like three steps. So why it is very important? So we have a certain range based on the line. We have a total of four production lines right now. So by line, the pea dryer, some line pea dryer moisture range is like a 15 to 20%, some are like 72 to 22%.
Mohammad Hossain (19:48):
So we have a range of the moisture and final product moisture range is like 12% or below. So when you see, suppose pre dryer moisture comes higher, all right?
Zachary Cartwright (19:54):
Mm-hmm(affirmative).
Mohammad Hossain (19:55):
So obviously that there's a high chance that final dryer after dryer the moisture will be higher than 12%. So that way, when they know that they can decrease the humidity, and you know that you control the moisture based on the temperature and humidity. So that way, if you find out your final product moisture is higher than 12%, so we need to decrease the humidity of the pre dryer and dryer. When you frequently monitor, when you frequently check you can, we can set, you can talk to your press operator and change the settings immediately. So that way you're not going that bad product. Right now, we are getting some shrink, I'm not sure like shrink pass the test because when you do the monitor every two hours in the meantime if anything happened wrong so you are already so much bad product already came out.
Zachary Cartwright (21:16):
Right.
Mohammad Hossain (21:18):
So, that product you need to do the regrind or you need to pass through again it's all money. So when you frequently check like every hour or every 30 minutes, so if anything comes lower or upper and sometimes the more comes lower. We don't like the lower moisture because that's the quality of the product. So the pasta that broken on the cook up to certain times. So we can communicate with our press operator instantly and he can change the settings. The shrink and wastage, everything will be low in that case because it's very simple when you monitor more you get quality products.
Zachary Cartwright (22:13):
What I'm hearing from you Mohammed is that by having these faster measurements, it equals not only quality but equals money because like you said, if you're going for two hours and you aren't monitoring your water you can have a lot of product that is outside of your spec or that it's not meeting your qualifications. So I'll be interested to check in with you and understand how those additional measurements are helping you and your team. So, final question Mohammed, I'm just curious to know what you are looking forward to next year. Is there anything specific even outside of work or outside of pasta, what is something that you're looking forward to?
Mohammad Hossain (23:09):
Is a hot time look. Yeah, maybe that I said earlier next year we're planing to buy some more laboratory equipment, anyway AQUALAB is really great. And we'll look for some more equipment like a tool. So the way we can do in-house testing rather than sending a third party.
Zachary Cartwright (23:43):
Yes.
Mohammad Hossain (23:44):
So like what I said, like the fat analysis, the ash analysis and more than that actually because our brand is growing, we are growing rapidly. Even we use also three or four co-manufacturer, co-packer who pack our products. And obviously, we want a high quality so that we can do the in-house monitoring on the quality rather send to the third party, yeah. That's actually my plan, our plan, my plan actually, sorry.
Zachary Cartwright (24:18):
Well, you must be a real scientist Mohammed because if the number one thing you're looking forward to is new lab equipment then, but I love the dedication. So you did mention mac and cheese earlier, I'm going to send you a recipe Mohammad. It requires a Cougar Gold from Washington State University and also some green chilies from Hatch, New Mexico. So I'm going to send you a recipe but that means you need to send me some pasta. Okay?
Mohammad Hossain (24:50):
Sure. Just to let you know, just to confirm one thing like mac and cheese, we don't make any cheese in here.
Zachary Cartwright (25:01):
Right.
Mohammad Hossain (25:02):
We've purchase cheese outside in the pouch and we insert from box to pan.
Zachary Cartwright (25:09):
I see. Well, Mohammed we just want to say, thank you. We've enjoyed having you as a guest here on Water In Food and I would love to catch up with you and understand where your processes at later in 2021 and see if you're hitting your goals. So thank you again for being a guest today.
Mohammad Hossain (25:31):
More than welcome. And I will keep in touch. Hopefully, we will work together.
Zachary Cartwright (25:37):
Definitely, thanks.
Mohammad Hossain (25:40):
You are welcome. Thank you so much, really appreciate
Zachary Cartwright (25:41):
Of course. Well, thanks, Muhammad. I'm Zachary Cartwright, this is Water In Food. Find this podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
