The Facts About Dried/Dehydrated Vegetables and Fruits, Nature`s Dry

DRY FACTS

Drying Vegetables and Fruits

Preserving of food was one of the crucial concerns of mankind from time immemorial. As a result drying technique has been invented and used for thousands of years by human beings.

bellpeppers During drying process the combined effects of air flow, air temperature and air humidity, the water is removed from the surface of the food. For a successful outcome from the drying process, the relationship between these 3 factors is crucial. Since lessening the moisture content of the produce prevent micro-organisms from growing, the food is protected and can be preserved for many months. In humid climates, however, moisture uptake must be prohibited through careful packaging techniques.

We may put dried products into 3 categories:

     Air-dried products: The most common type, some products here maybe blanched or sulphured/sulphited to protect the natural colour and help preservation.

    Dried and fried products: Partly dried and then deep-fried products are in this group. For example bombay mix and banana chips are in this group.

    Osmotically dried fruits: Fruits that are soaked into hot and concentrated sugar syrups to extract part of the water before it is put into drying process.

Dried fruits are sweet and tasty but how do we use dry vegetables ?

Nowadays, as our lifestyles change, especially in developed countries, dried vegetables and fruits are consumed widely as basic ingredients in ready-meals.

Dried/dehydrated vegetables are mostly used as ingredients by food processors, mainly from the European Union countries and the United States. Dried/dehydrated vegetables are used in the production of instant soups, sauces, dressings, ready meals, prepared products, baby food, dairy products, ready pasta dishes and pasta sauces, as well as microwave dishes and some meat and fish products. Many other dried/dehydrated vegetables are also used in various food industries.

Turkey`s Dried Fruits and Vegetables Production

Turkey is world`s one of the major producers of vegetables and fruits.Most of the dried/dehydrated vegetable production is oriented on tomatoes, mushrooms, leeks, carrots, potatoes, garlic, cauliflower,eggplants, squash, peas, sweet corn, okra etc...
Total production of dried/dehydrated vegetables has increased from 7.000 tons in 2000 to 20.000 tons by the year 2005 and has then been increasing parallel to foreign demand of these products.

Although fresh vegetables are produced almost everywhere throughout Turkey, dried/dehydrated vegetable production is mainly located in western regions of Anatolia.

Due to abundance of fresh vegetables and ongoing investments in dried/dehydrated vegetables production a remarkable development in the industry has been done and continuing.

fresh figs

Dry fruits production, on the other hand, is directed to apricots, figs and raisins. Turkey is the top most apricot producer of the world. Its soils provide 24.5% of the fresh apricot production and 79.7% of the dried apricot production all over the world. The total dried fruit production of Turkey consists of apricots, raisins and figs is 350.000 tons (estimated for 2007).

Exports

Dried/dehydrated vegetables and fruits are one of the main product groups that Turkey has been an exporter of.

Tomatoes which known worldwide by its quality, is the leading export produce among the dried vegetables. Its export reached to 16,484 tons in year 2008 after a constant increasing trend from 1997 on.
Mushrooms and eggplants have also been the major export items imported by mainly European Union countries and USA.

Turkey has started to export organic dried/dehydrated vegetables as demand for this type of produce increased by mostly western countries.

seedles grapes Turkey

The export of dried/dehydrated fruits amounted to 385.000 tons by the year 2008. As quality and produce outcome being very high for fruits, Turkey has the most share for export in dried apricots, figs and raisins in the world market.

The Weather

Turkey is warm and gets a lot of sunlight throughout the summer season. The Aegean region of Turkey where most of the dried vegetables and fruits are produced, gets sunlight 11.8 hours a day during June, July and August.
The average temperature is 32 °C and average rain fall is 1.8 days for the same months.