The Grades
  1. D/C Low Fat
  2. D/C High Fat

    • Fine, Medium

  3. Super Fine
  4. Chips,
  5. Thread,
  6. Flakes
  7. Shredded
  8. Coarse
  9. Toasted D/C

    • Fine
    • Medium
    • Chips

Description – Desiccated coconut comes from the tall, lean exotic coconut trees native to mostly South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is made by drying shredded pieces of pared kernel of fully matured fresh coconut. The product is meant for human consumption without further processing. The product obtained by drying the granulated or shredded white meat of coconut kernel.


General Requirements

Desiccated Coconut shall be processed, packed, stored and transported under hygienic conditions.

Appearance

The Colour of Desiccated Coconut shall be natural white and shall, for all grades, not greater than 0.2 red, 0.9 yellow and 0.1 blue on the Lovibond Tintometer scale.

Taste and Smell

The taste and smell of Desiccated Coconut shall be sweet and pleasant; it shall be free from cheesy, smoky, soapy, sour or other undesirable flavours.

Extraneous Matter

Desiccated Coconut shall be free from extraneous matter.




Parings

The brown specks due to parings in medium and coarse grades of Desiccated Coconut shall, under visual examination, not exceed 10 particles per 100 g drawn at random.




Process

The fresh matured coconuts are dehusked and deshelled manually using hand tools. The deshelled coconut kernels in the form of round balls are pared using scrapers to remove the testa. The pared kernel balls are then cut open to drain off the water and then washed thoroughly in fresh water to remove the invert sugars from the inner surface of the kernel. The kernel is then ground into a fine mass using hammer or pin mills. The ground mass is blanched with live steam for about 20 minutes to bring down the microbiological counts. The blanched mass is then dried in hot air drier at a temperature of 80-90oC for about 10 hours so as to bring down the moisture content to below 3 per cent. The hot air drier is provided with a drying chamber consisting of a series of trays, which hold the feed. Hot air is blown into this chamber from an external source through blowers. The dried mass is tested for moisture, free fatty acid and microbiological counts. The product is packed in polythene pouches.