Evaluación de pérdidas y desperdicios en empresas artesanales generadoras de valor agregado con cacao CCN51 (Theobroma cacao L.) del cantón Ambato-Ecuador

Abstract

The craft companies that transform cocoa into value-added products in the Ambato-Ecuador canton generate a large amount of losses and waste, causing low production performance, which is not solved by the chocolatiers as they do not have a clear knowledge of the amount exactly what is lost from the raw material in each operation and how this affects the productive growth. Therefore, the main objective of the work is to quantify the losses and waste generated in the transformation of cocoa into semi-finished products. The work was carried out through the information collected in 15 craft chocolate-producing companies through a questionnaire with which cross-tabs of the key information obtained were elaborated, later, in 3 of the companies the amount of losses and waste of each was determined one of the processes that are carried out for the production of semi-finished products by making 3 replicas. Obtaining in this way the exact quantity and percentages of losses and waste during each operation that is carried out in the production of cocoa paste and chocolate, together with yields of 79.63 and 88.06 percent, respectively. Which it was concluded that they presented low values compared to bibliographic sources, determining that there is poor handling of the product, along with poor infrastructure causing losses in production processes which are not considered by producers by not seeking solutions. increase their productive performance.