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Production Yield

applies to: nutraCoster 2.1

This article explains why nutraCoster has only one field for Production Yield even though some production losses occur before cooking and some occur after cooking.

This article also explains how to measure recipe yields and losses in the kitchen, and how to enter those values into nutraCoster.

For general information about recipe yields in nutraCoster, see the article Specifying Recipe Yield.

Types of Yield

Processing Yields are losses or gains that affect some nutrients but not others, such as water loss during baking, fat gain during frying, etc.

Production Yields are losses that affect all nutrients proportionally. Some production losses occur before cooking, such as spillage during scaling and mixing, batter sticking to mixers, etc. Other production losses occur after cooking, such as breakage, trimming, etc.

Measuring Recipe Yields in the Kitchen

The yield of a process or production step is the ratio of the output to the input. Yields are generally expressed as percentages.

The following steps allow you to measure these yields:

  • Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking
  • Processing Yield Percentage
  • Production Yield Percentage After Cooking
  1. Calculate the total expected weight of all ingredients. This number corresponds to the Total Ingredient Weight in nutraCoster.
  2. Combine, mix, scale and form the ingredients into individual units.
    Weigh the total batch. This is the Weight Before Cooking.
  3. Cook the product and weigh the result. This is the Weight After Cooking.
  4. Perform any post-cooking operations such as trimming, packing, etc. If there are any losses in these steps, weigh the entire batch again. This is the Final Weight.

Divide the Weight Before Cooking by the Total Ingredient Weight to get the Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking.

Divide the Weight After Cooking by the Weight Before Cooking to get the Processing Yield Percentage.

Divide the Final Weight by the Weight After Cooking to get the Production Yield Percentage After Cooking.

Note If you enter the weights nutraCoster calculates the percentages. If you enter the percentages, nutraCoster calculates the weights.

Calculating the Final Yield

You calculate the combined yield of 2 or more production or process steps by multiplying the individual yields.

Even though the production steps occur in the sequence described above, where losses occur before cooking, during cooking and after cooking, the examples below show that you can calculate the final yield of the recipe by considering the individual yields in any order.

This means we can calculate the final yield by first considering the Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking and the Production Yield Percentage After Cooking, and then considering the Processing Yield Percentage.

We can combine the Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking and the Production Yield Percentage After Cooking into a single value by multiplying the yields. This produces a single yield value that is simply called Production Yield in nutraCoster.

Note Any of these steps can have 100% yield, meaning there are no losses in that step.

Example Calculations

Click here for examples that illustrate that you get the same results from your analysis if you consider the individual yields in any order.

Summary

You get the same results when you consider the yields in any order.

You combine yields by multiplying the yield percentages.

nutraCoster combines Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking and Production Yield Percentage After Cooking into a single value called Production Yield Percentage, and treats it as occurring before processing.

For the example shown above, Production Yield Percentage Before Cooking is 90% and Production Yield Percentage After Cooking is 60%, so the combined Production Yield Percentage is 54%.

The example would be entered in nutraCoster as follows:

  1. Total Ingredient Weight is 100g, composed of 50g carbohydrate and 50g water.
  2. Production Yield Percentage is 54%. This makes the Weight Before Cooking 54g. Since this is production loss, it affects all nutrients proportionally. The proportion of carbohydrate to water is 1:1. This means we lose 23g carbohydrate and 23g water, leaving 27g carbohydrate and 27g water.
  3. Processing Yield Percentage is 77.8%. This makes the Weight After Cooking 42g. Weight loss is 12g, which is all water loss. This leaves 27g carbohydrate and 15g water, for 42g final yield.