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Cassava(M anihotesculenta), is one o f the most important food crops in the humid tropics. Sri Lanka
has a surplus production of cassava. Developing of proper technologies is needed to increase the
utilization o f cassava as processed foods for increasing the potential utilizations and minimizing the
postharvest losses o f the crop. Cassavacrocket, cassava chips and cassava starch are few popular
processed cassava products available in the local market.Investigations were carried out to identify
the wastes generated during the processing o f cassava crocket and chemical analysis were carried out
to identify the potential utilizations o f the wastes as a preliminary study to apply Resource Efficient
and Cleaner production(RECP)Technology to improve the cassava crocket processing.
Processing o f cassava crocket was observed at the manufacturing plants at “Maharagama” and
“Peradeniya” and the data were collected. The samples of wastes were collected on site,according to
the random sampling method to calculate the amounts of waste. The proximate composition o f the
cassava wastes was analysed according to AO AC methods.
The major wastes of the cassava crocket processing were cassava peel and the liquid squeezed out o f
grated cassava. According to the results 21.5±1.3percent and 20.8±1.7percent of the total weight of
raw cassava root was wasted as peel and liquid squeezed respectively. From the peel waste
3.6±0.5percentof total cassava root is the brownish peel which is the periderm and 17.7±1.0percent
of the total cassava root is thick peel which is the cortex. Results obtained from the proximate analysis
of raw cassava tuber showed,the moisture content as 63.07±0.4percent,protein content as
1.5±0.3percent,fat content as 0.5±0.03percent, crude fibre content as 3.7±0.4percent,ash content as
1.0±0.2percent and carbohydrate content as30.23±0.2percent. Proximate composition of cassava
peel(cortex) had moisture content o f 7.5±0.3percent,protein content of 8.2±0. lpercent,fat content of
3.1±0.4percent,crude fibre content o f 12.5±0.2percent,ash content of 6.5±0.2percent and
carbohydrate content o f 71.6±0.5percent.
According to results the total waste generated in the cassava crocket was42.3% of the total weight of
raw cassava root. The thick peel which is high in nutrients can be used as a good source of animal
feed and the squeezed liquid can be used to develop snack foods like “Kokis” by incorporation of
coconut milk and spices
