The Food Umbrella

Have you been looking for food additives, accessories, tools, equipment and packaging materials for you small, mid to large scale food production. I have been able to compile a number of local suppliers of these food processing aids. Let's get started. Do remember to check my guide for online shopping here. 1. Afroplast Enterprises Limited. Located at Plot 19/33 Port Bell Road, Luzira. Next to Uganda Breweries. Afroplast manufactures and supplies Plastic containers like bottles, jerrycans, jars and other containers for your packaging needs. Contact; +256414505926/5 | +256793221147 2. Desbro Uganda Limited Located at Plot 60 - 64 6th Street Industrial Area, Kampala, Desbro supplies a range of Chemicals and raw materials for food and other industrial uses in small and large quantities. Contact; +256 41 4254557 or email at desbro@ desbro.co.ug 3. Leo's Wine Accessories. Located at Mini Village, Kabalagala opposite Jack and Jill Nursery and Primary School along Ggaba Ro...

This is a way for you to tell whether your jellied sauce; jam, ketchup or marmalade has set; implying that it has reached the perfect consistency and the water phase has been completely incorporated into the sauce. Its basically used to tell if the sauce is ready. You'll need: A ladle A clean preferably white plate or even a spoon. Now let's get to how you do it: When your jellied sauce begins to thicken and your predetermined time is over, use your stirring  ladle to drop some of the cooking jam, ketchup or marmalade onto your clean dry plate. Let it set for about 30 seconds then tilt the plate. Here's what you'll see and do. 1. If the jam, ketchup or marmalade begins to flow downwards with no breakage of consistency or water running out, then its set and ready for packing 2. If its runny and water sips out as it flows, then its not ready and you can continue to cook for 2 to 3 minutes and retry the test until its ready. 3. If its dry, then it was over coo...

Marmalade is basically jam made from citrus fruits. With marmalade, we use both the fruit juice, the peels and the innards of the fruit. In this article, I describe how you can make your own marmalade at home. Here's what you'll need: Citrus fruit, I'll be using oranges. (500g about 6 big ones) Sugar. (500g) Water (one and a quarter liters) Storage jars. Let's get to it: First, we'll have to extract the juice using a citrus juicer and we'll keep the peels and innards. Then, we'll have to cook the juice in about one and a quarter liters of water for 30 minutes. While the juice cooks, we'll need to chop the peels and innards into smaller pieces then add them to the boiling juice together with the sugar. We'll cook for 30 more minutes and check for readiness using the cold plate test. Keep in mind : The marmalade doesn't need any preservatives as the sugar acts as one. The marmalade also isn't recommended for diabetics because of t...

You've probably seen spherical liquid filled balls that you can eat on the Internet, if you haven't well these are small balls filled with water or fruit juice that you can just chew and they literally burst in your mouth. In this article, am going to show you how you can make these balls at home. Here's what you'll need: 1. Sodium Alginate (1g). 2. Calcium lactate [food grade] (5g). Now you might not be able to get these ingredients at your local store but you can order them on EBay , AliExpress or Amazon. 3. Boiled water 4. Fruit Juice ( if you're going to be making fruit juice balls) 5. A scooping spoon. 6. A spotted spoon. 7. Bowls (3) Now let's get to it: So, you're going to mix 1g of Sodium alginate into one cup of water or fruit juice for fruit juice balls using a blender. Don't worry about the bubbles, they'll go away as you prepare the other ingredients. Now you'll mix the 5g Calcium lactate into 4 cups of water. Well t...

The sweet tangy sauce is a must have condiment with most foods like chips, French fries and deep fried chicken. Tomato Ketchup production is dominated by the food giant Heinz and you could get a bottle at your local stores. However, for the DIY person, in this article am going to show you how you can make your own ketchup at home with local ingredients. Here's what you'll need: Ripe firm tomatoes (500g; about 10 big ones) Sugar (50g; 2 heaped tablespoons) Salt (50g; 2 heaped tablespoons) Vinegar (50mls) Onions (2 big ones) Garlic (2 cloves) Black pepper (half a teaspoon) Lime (1 teaspoon) Celery (1 teaspoon) Chilli powder (quarter teaspoon) Now let's get to it. You need to cook the tomatoes, onions and garlic in water for 15 minutes. Make sure the water is just above the tomatoes. Next you'll have to blend the tomatoes with either a hand blender of transfer batches into your fruit juicer. Sieve with a fine strainer then what you'll get is called t...