Hygienic and Timeliness of Salted Dried Fish Process Using Smart Portable Outdoor Domestic Solar Drying Cabinet (PODSOD)

Abstract

Food waste problem is becoming a highly concerned issue among Malaysians. This unhealthy culture is considered as the main challenge to the Malaysians' as well as the world's food system. These wastes have worrying consequences for land, water, and air pollution, not to mention global warming. Using smart Portable Outdoor Domestic Solar Drying Cabinet (PODSOD), it is expected that the food waste due to food spoilage can be controlled by food drying technique. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of conventional open sun drying (OPS) and innovative PODSOD in terms of physical parameters of the salted Mackerel fishes. The product has been registered under copyright reference number LY2020006542. In this paper, we focus on salted dried Mackerel (12 x 5 x 1.5cm). At the first stage, before the product was developed, analysis on sun hours, temperature and humidity at Changlun, Kedah was examined. After the product has been developed, we examined the practicality of the product on fish drying from 1 st February to 30 th April 2021 using sensors installed within the product. The results were compared to open sun drying technique using similar specifications of samples. Based on final results, it can be concluded that fishes can be dried using the product within 2-3 hours.