Food product development using sorghum and millets: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Sorghum and millets are uniquely well-adapted to cultivation in the harsh environmental conditions of the semi-arid tropics. For Africa and India, they represent attractive materials for developing food and beverage manufacturing enterprises; in contrast to wheat and barley that often cannot be locally cultivated economically. For example, notable technological and commercial success has been achieved in Africa with the replacement of barley malt with sorghum in the production of lager and stout beers and nonalcoholic malt beverages. Sorghum and millets also have a several valuable attributes that are increasing being exploited in food and beverage products. Their most important attribute is that they are the basis of many local traditional African and Indian foods such as porridges, flatbreads, snacks and fermented non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. By application of cereal science and technology, safe and economic manufacturing processes are being developed for many of these traditional products or derivatives of them. Such products are generally aimed at the rapidly growing urban market. Three levels of grain value-addition can be identified, which demand increasingly sophisticated skills, but are suitable for SMEtype manufacture: 1. Clean grain and simple flours, 2. Composite and fortified flours, and 3. Ready-to-Eat foods and beverages