Ideas with minimal investment and risks can be safely attributed to such an idea as the production of sauerkraut. The product is certainly popular, especially among urban residents in the autumn-winter period. What we see today on the shelves of supermarkets often does not correspond to high quality. If you learn how to make sauerkraut really tasty, you will truly home recipe, - buyers will stand in line.
Organization of production
This business has two ways: legal and illegal. The first option is more expensive and justified only if good distribution channels are established (for example, a distribution network). We are talking about the production of at least 1 ton of cabbage per day. The legalization of a business involves registration of entrepreneurial activity (IP), tax registration, registration of all permits (Rospotrebnadzor, Pozhnadzor), strict adherence to all sanitary rules in the room (ceiling height, walls, appropriate equipment, sanitary books, etc.). You will definitely need to obtain a declaration of conformity for products (not to be confused with certification). All possible engineering networks must be connected in the room: sewerage, water supply, ventilation, electricity. The cost of starting a business will be at least $ 20 - 35 thousand.
Illegal business can be run at home, but there can be no talk of serious turnovers and large contracts. This option is suitable for market testing (see product distribution channels), as it does not involve high start-up costs and serious risks. “This type of business is good only in informal execution. Room, tables, bathtubs or plastic barrels, Tajiks. Here is a cost-effective production,” says the user “welikii” from the “ideas of business” forum.
Pickling equipment and technology
It is better to use oak barrels for pickling, as the quality of cabbage is better. A new oak barrel of 200 liters will cost from 15 to 20 thousand rubles. If there are problems with the budget, you can buy plastic barrels, but in them the product will turn out to be a slightly different taste and quality.
Calculations from business forums show that for the daily sale of 100 kg of sauerkraut, 3 barrels with a capacity of 200 kg each will be required. This is necessary in order to support all technological process: bookmark, ripening, packaging, etc.
Immediately it is worth considering the issue of storing raw materials (cabbages, carrots, etc.). A sufficiently capacious warehouse (not less than 50 sq. m.) is required, as well as well-established channels for the supply of products.
financial calculation
As for the raw material issue itself, for the production of 10 tons of sauerkraut you will need:
- Fresh cabbage - 11,800 kg.
- Salt - 25 kg.
- Carrots - 30 kg.
- Cranberries and lingonberries - 30 kg.
- Seasonings - 10 kg.
The estimated cost of production for raw materials alone is 600,000 rubles. The sale of 10 tons of sauerkraut will give 1,000,000 rubles. The difference will be 400,000 rubles. We subtract the costs of wages, taxes, utility and transport costs and get a profit of about 250,000 rubles.
Sale of goods
The main sales markets for sauerkraut will be retail stores, vegetable bases, retail chains, kindergartens and public catering organizations. Let's dwell briefly on each.
Small grocery stores a good option, but there are fewer and fewer such outlets, as they are being replaced by retail chains. In addition, they will not be able to take large volumes (maximum 15 kg at a time), so the road to small settlements is closed (unprofitable in terms of logistics). You can only develop cities where there are many such points.
Trade networks are ideal, as they can take as much as you can't even produce. But there is one well-known problem - an expensive entrance ticket. To get on the supermarket shelves, you will have to satisfy the requests of purchasing managers. And they are very big. Also, you will have to comply with all the requirements of the network: labeling, packaging and no problems with specialists.
Kindergartens are also a good option, but there may be difficulties in obtaining a state order (tender). If you win the tender, you can get admission to many kindergartens in your city.
In the absence of an agreement with shops or cafes, you can sell cabbage on your own in the market. “I know a guy from Ryazan, he sells sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes and other pickles at the market in Zhulebino. He comes three times a week. People take from him very actively, although there are still several points on the market. But he tastes better. He doesn’t sell in the summer (apparently, he grows vegetables on his own), he trades somewhere from October to May, ”says the user“ mouse ”from the biznet.ru forum.
Business prospects - what else can you earn
The production of sauerkraut is successfully combined with the production of other vegetable products: pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, Korean-style carrots and cabbage, salads and pickled mushrooms, etc. This is convenient because vegetables can be taken from the same suppliers (farms).
With the expansion of the range, you can open your own outlets at grocery stores, markets or trade from a mobile shop.
A business that even women of advanced years can do. The idea for a small business is quite simple, and the products are in demand all year round. One of the few types of business in which the sale of finished products is guaranteed. Sauerkraut in our country has been popular for a long time. It's not only tasty dish, but a storehouse of vitamins and other useful substances.
At the same time, it is quite suitable even for people who control their weight, as it is non-caloric. In winter, sauerkraut can be found on the table of almost every inhabitant of our country. But not everyone has the time and desire to cook cabbage.
This is especially true for residents of large cities, who find it easier to buy the required amount of sauerkraut for the table at the market or store, and not engage in pickling it. Therefore, if there is an opportunity to start sauerkraut for sale, why not try this type of money making.
Since the process of sauerkraut falls on the autumn period, it is necessary to prepare for it in advance. It will be determined in advance where and in what quantity it will be purchased fresh cabbage. Then you need to draw up all the documents: register with the tax office as an individual entrepreneur and, of course, draw up documents confirming the quality of your products. Then choose a room where you will be engaged in production and purchase everything that is required for sauerkraut.
In this business, special attention must be paid to the container in which the kaputa fermentation process will take place. It is desirable that these were wooden tubs. You can also ferment cabbage in polyethylene containers if they are intended for food products. But in wooden tubs, cabbage will turn out tastier.
Before laying cabbage, wooden tubs must be thoroughly washed and soaked in water so that the tree is well saturated with water and does not take in the juice from salting. After everything else and steam. In poorly soaked tubs, cabbage can turn out to be rather dry. It is also necessary to purchase polyethylene food buckets for transporting cabbage for sale and food containers for small packaging for sale.
Seasonings that are planned to be used in the process of fermenting cabbage must be of high quality, table salt for pickling is not iodized. Iodized salt is not used in any type of canning and pickling of vegetables. During the preliminary work, it is necessary to look for places to sell your products: offer for sale in shops, cafes and canteens.
In order to acquire a large clientele for the future development of your business, it is not bad to enter the market with your products. It is best to pickle cabbage different recipes because consumers have different tastes. Someone loves classic sauerkraut, someone with various additives: cranberries, lingonberries, apples or red beets. The number of customers and, of course, your income for the season will depend on how tasty the first batch of sauerkraut will be cooked.
Over time, you can expand your production and harvest not only cabbage, but also pickle cucumbers, as well as cook pickled apples. With the purchase price for fresh cabbage from farmers 5 rubles per kg and the cost of a kilogram of sauerkraut from 50 rubles to 160 rubles, you can calculate whether it is worth doing this type of business. Moreover, to receive income from this business idea, you can combine it with your main job and consider it as an additional type of income.
You won't believe how much unsold fresh cabbage is fed to livestock in peasant farms, where formic acid from www.urzol.ru/hcooh.shtml is also required to ferment colostrum when feeding calves. Let's help farmers by buying cabbage from them right on the spot, until it has risen in price (beneficial to you) or simply rotted in piles due to improper organization of the sale (beneficial to farmers). Everyone benefits from the processing of agricultural products.
Receive the most in your email:
Sauerkraut is not only a favorite dish and a great source of vitamins, but also a great idea for a small business. At the heart of this low-cost and profitable business is original recipe and quality raw materials.
This business idea is most relevant, in our opinion, for residents of the private sector, when they have their own utility rooms at their disposal for organizing production, storing raw materials and finished products.
Chop "cabbage" all year round!
There are a sufficient number of recipes that allow you to cook cabbage snacks and earn good money from it almost all year round. It’s worth clarifying right away that by this business we mean the production of sauerkraut in large quantities with established distribution channels. Otherwise, it will not be a business, but work for the sake of work.
The most difficult thing in this business, as in many other areas, will not be the solution of organizational issues, not the search for suppliers, and not even production subtleties, but the establishment of distribution channels.
Equipment for sauerkraut
Today on the market there are completely ready-to-work industrial sauerkraut lines that allow to produce natural product high quality according to the requirements of GOST with high taste and consumer properties.
Sauerkraut, as a rule, is carried out in PVC containers with shrink liners with a capacity of about 17 kg and the use of pure cultures of lactic acid bacteria.
High qualification of service personnel is not required, since all main production processes are mechanized and automated. Such lines allow the production of several product formulations and packaging in disposable containers for subsequent sale. The productivity of such a line is 2-4 tons of finished product per day.
The production line includes: a stalk cutter, a cabbage shredder, a carrot slicer, a salt sprinkling machine, an elevator for feeding the product into a barrel, a barrel tipper.
To whom to sell the produced sauerkraut?
There are several options here: to sell ready-made sauerkraut through small shops, to establish contacts with retail chains - supermarkets and hypermarkets, to wholesale products to a vegetable warehouse.
In the first option, it will be very difficult to sell a large number of products, and the costs associated with delivery will hit your pocket hard. The option with a vegetable warehouse is more suitable in this sense, but the price here will not be as high as we would like.
Optimal output - agreement with retail chains, but in order to break into the counter of a chain store, you need to produce truly competitive products.
For fermentation use white cabbage mid-season, mid-late and late-ripening varieties - Moscow late, Slava, Belorusskaya, Winter Gribovskaya, Gift, Snow White, etc. Early varieties of cabbage have loose heads and contain little sugar, so sauerkraut is of poor quality. Carrots are necessarily used as raw materials, and depending on the recipe, apples, cranberries, lingonberries, caraway seeds (seeds), bay leaves, sweet vegetable peppers, etc.
According to the method of preparation, sauerkraut is divided into:
shredded,
chopped,
head with shredded or chopped,
whole-headed, etc.
Each type of cabbage is prepared according to special recipes in accordance with the current technological instructions, but most often cabbage is fermented with the addition of 3% carrots and 2% salt, and sometimes up to 8% apples, 0.05% cumin, 0.03% bay leaves, 2% cranberries and 2% lingonberries, depending on the recipe. Whole cabbage during pickling is poured with 4% brine. Sometimes, according to the recipe, cabbage is fermented with sweet vegetable peppers and carrots (or without it), table beets and carrots, etc.
The scheme for the production of sauerkraut includes stripping heads, removing the stalk, shredding or chopping cabbage, preparing auxiliary raw materials, packing and compacting (self-pressing or vacuum pressing), fermentation, storage, unloading and packaging.
Cabbage, stripped of green and damaged leaves, trimmed flush with the head of cabbage, after sorting by quality, is fed to a shredding machine, which shreds it into narrow strips no more than 5 mm wide, the particle size of chopped cabbage should be no more than 12 mm in the largest dimension. Cabbage is also fermented in whole heads or in the form of half-heads, as well as with a layer of shredded or chopped cabbage.
At the same time, carrots are prepared, which improves the taste, appearance and nutritional value of sauerkraut. Carrots are washed, peeled on root peelers, cleaned by hand, chopped into strips, columns or circles of certain sizes. Apples, cranberries, lingonberries, bay leaves (sorted and washed), cumin (cleaned from twigs and impurities), salt (sieved) are also prepared. Apples are laid whole or in halves or quarters without seed chambers.
At the bottom of the doshnik put clean cabbage leaves. Shredded cabbage, together with auxiliary materials, is loaded into a doshnik, leveled, tightly tamped and sprinkled with table salt in layers. Dense tamping contributes to the creation of anaerobic conditions during fermentation.
When using the leaven of pure cultures of lactic acid microorganisms, it is poured with a watering can on each layer of cabbage, placed in doshniks. For the preparation of starter cultures, non-gas-forming lactic acid bacteria and yeasts are used.
Pure cultures of microorganisms and yeasts are propagated separately. Cabbage broth, which is obtained by boiling fresh shredded cabbage in water, is used as a medium for obtaining sourdough. When the cabbage softens, the broth is filtered and added to the juice.
Cabbage loaded into the doshnik is covered with leaves with a layer of about 5 cm, and on top with plastic wrap or gauze, a pressure circle is applied, pressure is set with a screw press until juice appears.
The most promising is the non-damping method, in which losses are reduced and product quality is improved.
Sauerkraut is carried out in specialized box pallets with polyethylene liners with a capacity of 500 kg. A feature of the technology is the separation of fermentation and storage processes, which allows maintaining optimal temperature conditions for each of them. Prepared cabbage and auxiliary raw materials according to the recipe, as well as the starter of pure cultures of lactic acid bacteria, are loaded into containers with strong and dense polyethylene liners (200 microns thick). A container with cabbage is installed under the head of the vacuum unit, and air is sucked out of it using a vacuum pump, which is in the gaps between the pieces of vegetables and partially dissolved in the cell juice of the cabbage. The total volume occupied by cabbage is sharply reduced. The liner is tightly tied, leaving free space for the gases released during fermentation, and from above, in order to prevent air from entering from the outside, they are clamped with special clamps, consisting of two wooden planks fastened with bolts.
The containers are placed by loaders into the fermentation chamber and kept there at a temperature of 20-24°C for 3-4 days. Then, when the total acidity of the cabbage reaches 0.7-0.8%, the containers are transported to a storage room at a temperature of 0...+2°C, where it can be stored for several months. Before sale, sauerkraut is packaged in polyethylene film bags.
The fermentation process that occurs during sauerkraut includes three periods. In the first period there is an intensive reproduction of lactic acid bacteria; in the second - the accumulation of lactic acid - this is the main period of fermentation; in the third period, fermentation takes place.
In the first period, table salt causes plasmolysis of the cabbage cells and extracts the moisture contained in the cabbage. The extractive substances in the cells of the cabbage pass into the brine. During this fermentation period, the salt concentration in the brine is high and microorganisms cannot develop in it. As moisture is further released from the cabbage, the salt concentration in the brine decreases and conditions for microbiological processes are created. There is slight turbidity of the juice and strong gas formation caused by the activity of yeast, coli bacteria and other microorganisms. The resulting foam is removed, as it serves as a good environment for the development of foreign microorganisms. At the same time, lactic acid bacteria also begin to act, which gradually occupy a predominant position. The rate of fermentation, and hence the quality of the product, depends on the temperature. The most favorable temperature is 17-22°C. At lower temperatures, fermentation is slow, which degrades the quality of the finished product. Higher temperatures are also undesirable, as this will contribute to the development of extraneous microflora.
The beginning of reproduction of lactic acid bacteria ends the first stage of the process. This step should be carried out quickly so that the resulting lactic acid suppresses the development of foreign microorganisms as soon as possible.
The second period - the main fermentation - is characterized by the accumulation of lactic acid as a result of the decomposition of sugars.
The most favorable temperature for the second period of the process is also about 20°C, at which fermentation continues for 5-7 days. At this fermentation temperature, a relatively rapid development of lactic acid bacteria is ensured and side processes are inhibited. Sauerkraut is obtained with a lower content of alcohol and volatile acids, with a greater preservation of ascorbic acid.
Lactic acid fermentation stops when 1.5-2.0% lactic acid is formed in the product. The most pleasant to taste is cabbage with an acidity of 0.7-1.3%, containing 1.2-1.8% of salt.
The third period of the fermentation process is characterized by the fact that the accumulated lactic acid begins to suppress the activity of lactic acid bacteria. At the same time, under conditions of high acidity, molds and membranous yeasts develop well, which destroy lactic acid. To prevent their development, sauerkraut is stored at a temperature of 0 ... -2 ° C, using natural and artificial cold for this. Cabbage is stored in the same doshniks in which it was fermented, at a relative humidity of 90-95%, which significantly reduces the evaporation of moisture from the surface. The best are doshniks, the lower part of which is located in an artificially cooled basement.
