Ricardo Gonzalez Monte de Oca, the manager of the State Agricultural Council, said that the Chili Product System's Committee had designed a solar powered chili dehydrator as part of their efforts to become more competitive in the dry chili market at the local and national levels.
He said dried chili was very important for local producers because Mexico had a very interesting market and a high consumption of chili, and was importing much product from different countries, like China, India, and Peru, when their own production was more competitive.
Gonzalez Montes de Oca also stated that the dehydration process extended the shelf life of the product, so the other countries had no problems sending it to Mexico. "They produce the chili at a low cost. They dehydrate it, send it to Mexico and there it competes with the chili produced in Mexico."
He said the dehydrator used the sun, some air turbines, and some radiators to increase the temperature to dehydrate the chili. The dehydration process is carried out at 70 degrees Celsius. Since this dehydrator is solar powered, production costs decrease. Traditionally, the dehydration process was carried out with LP gas.
Source: heraldo.mx