Preliminary Planning for Vegetable Dehydration

Excerpts: Very large expansion of vegetable dehydration (the largest ever attempted) occurred during the first years of World War II. The construction of many plants was authorized, but only part of these were actually built and still fewer operated successfully. Most of the production came from a relatively small number of plants, and very few plants built during the War continued to operate in the post-war period. The principal reasons for discontinuance of many successful plants were the cancellation of Government orders and absence of civilian markets to absorb the output from the war-expanded capacity. Many other plants, however, operated unsuccessfully, failed, or never got into production because of inadequate or improper planning. Studies conducted in this Laboratory during and since that period have brought together information on factors that contributed to many of those failures. This publication is designed to introduce dehydration to a newcomer and to discuss some of the problems he must face in considering whether or not to attempt entry into that field.