Evaluation of sorghum varieties for the
production of snack bars
First Bio-Innovate regional scientific
conference, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25-27
February 2013
YB Byaruhanga, P Ndahilo, A Kisambira, B
Sentongo

Introduction
 Sorghum is a major food crop in Africa
 Due to its robust and hardy nature, sorghum
will remain one of Africa’s major food crops
 In Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda per capita
consumption of sorghum is up to 25
kg/capita/year

Introduction
 However, one of the major challenges with
sorghum
 Utilization which is limited to
 Soft/stiff
porridges – with or without malting &/or
fermentation
 Beers opaque indigenous and now clear lagers
 Animal feed
 Thus there is limited processing to
 Add value (convenience, nutrition and shelf life)
 Increase variety of sorghum products
 We obtain less economic value from sorghum

Objective
 This study sought to present sorghum in a
different form that embodies convenience and
nutrition - sorghum snack bar
 Specifically
 Develop a method for production of the sorghum
snack bar easily adaptable to MSMEs
 Assess the suitability of different sorghum
varieties for snack bar production
 Determine the nutritional sensory properties of the
snack bar

Methodology
Materials
 Four common sorghum varieties namely
Epurpur, Seso 1, Seso 2 & Eyera were
evaluated
 Grains were obtained from NARO –Serere
and cleaned to remove
 Foreign matter, chuff, moulded shrivelled and
broken grain

Methodology
Bar formulation
 The formulation aimed at modifying the
 Nutritional (protein and energy) composition
 Sensory properties (taste and flavour)
 Physical properties of the snack bar
 Thus additional ingredients used were
 Roasted sesame and ground nuts
 Sucrose/common sugar

Table 1: Formulation for sorghum snack
bar
 Target was to obtain a 40g bar providing
at least:
 25% of daily recommended protein intake for 4-8
yr child
 15% of daily recommended energy intake for 4-8
yr child

Methodology
Snack bar making
process
 The conventional
method of making
snack bars from cereal
grains was used
 Pre-treatment
 Steaming
 Steaming with rolling
 Steaming with rolling &
toasting
 Popping with
conditioning

Methodology
 Bar formation
 Mixingingredients
 Moulding and pressing
 Packaging

Findings

How not to make a sorghum
bar
 Steaming alone, steaming with rolling, and
steaming with rolling and toasting produced
 Hard and brittle grains – not appealing to
consumer
 Hard and brittle grain needed moistening to make
the bar pliable – but this compromised product
safety and shelf stability
 The hardness & brittleness were attributed to
 Sorghum grain size and structure
 Starch and protein type and structural
conformation

How to make a sorghum bar
Table 2: Popping of four sorghum varieties conditioned to different
moisture content
Moisture % popping grains for different varieties
content (%) Epurpur Seseo 1 Seso 3 Eyera
12 control 13 (1.9) 13 (3.8) 34 (2.4)
9 (1.4)
14-16 85 (2.5) 73 (2.5) 67 (9.8)
13 (2.3)

How to make a sorghum bar
From Table 2:
 Sorghum varieties popped to different extents
with Epurpur popping most and Eyera popping
least
 Conditioning the grain to different moisture
content affected popping rates
 Also, popping of sorghum grain produced a
snack bar that was appealing to consumers –
appearance, texture, & flavour

Nutritional composition of
sorghum snack bar
Table 3: Nutritional composition of sorghum snack bars on dry
basis
Parameter Seso 1 Seso 3 Epurpur
Energy kcal/g 4.96 5.53 5.28
Carbohydrates 51.8 52.9 52.6
(%)
Protein (%) 14.3 14.8 12.6
Fiber (%) 10.9( 9.8 8.2
K mg/100g 655.0 530.0 690.0
Na mg/100g 85.0 80.0 95.0
Ca mg/100g 335.0 335.0 395.0
Fe mg/100g 7.4 5.5 12.9
Zn mg/100g 2.3 1.3 1.68
•This formulation attained 27% and 15% of the
daily recommended protein and energy intake,
respectively

Sensory acceptability of snack bar
from 3 sorghum varieties
 The snack bars from all the three sorghum
varieties were acceptable (scoring 7 on a scale
of 9)
 Snack bars from Seso 1 were the most liked
followed by Epurpur and Seso 3

Conclusion
 With modification, sorghum varieties can be
used to produce an acceptable snack bar
 With respect to suitability, varieties were
ranked as Seso 1, Epurpur and Seso 3 in
descending order
 Simple technology adaptable to micro, small,
medium and large enterprise

Product market potential
 The sorghum snack bar can be positioned as
a healthy snack bar
 With a few modifications, the snack bar can be
positioned as a vehicle to deliver nutrients to
consumer groups with different nutritional
needs such as
 diabetics, school children, relief food and army
rations

The enterprise side
 Production costs
 In development a 40g bar cost about US$ 0.2
 This can be brought down to less than US$ 0.1 in
a commercial operation producing 50-100kg of
product/day
 At a micro-enterprise level one can start with
about US$ 1000
 Are you a potential investor?
 If yes lets talk!

Acknowledgement
 Consortium partners
 Research team
 Bio-Innovate
 SIDA