

THE PELLET, a semi-finished product, ,
is the core of snack industry since its characteristics - shape, texture and partly the taste - determine the characteristics of the edible snack achieved after expansion. The inventor of pellets used the same expansion principle of "pop-corns", creating a starchy matrix with a vitreous structure, which "bursts" when submitted to powerful thermic treatment.
Raw materials with high quantity of starch are necessary to obtain an amorphous vitreous structure once it is gelatinised and dried.
In the past, pellets were manufactured in manual way, by means of dough vapour cooking, cut and finally sun-dried. Nowadays, highly sophisticated technologies are used to mix powder ingredients, to extrude and cook the dough, to shape the pellet. Die forming, stamping, piercing, are traditional systems of shaping the pellet, while the most recent technologies allow to obtain 3D and pillow shapes by conveying and cutting two sheets of dough together.
A pellet-based snack offers SIGNIFICATIVE ADVANTAGES in comparison with natural potato crisps, in terms of
Profitability thanks to:
Marketing opportunities thanks to: