Abstract

In order to evaluate a few effective factors on traditional breads wastage in Zanjan, 30 bakeries of this town were randomly selected. With direct referring to bakeries and filling out the related forms, and evaluation the quality of used flour samples, it turned out that although 56.67 percent of bakers in this town, had over 20 year experience, almost none of them, had any scientific information on bread-making that has important factor in reducing bread wastage. About the important factors in bread-making, the results showed that almost all of the bakers, use of sourdough included with bakery yeast for fermentation but, only about 10 percent of the bakeries, considered the proper fermentation time. The results of bread-baking revealed that about 57 percent of the bread baking machine had over the age of 15 years, this suggests that the machines are overused and they needs to be replaced. Overall, the amount of waste traditional breads of Zanjan, is calculated about 25.79 percent, which is remarkable, and much of it is includes Lavash bread (17.27 percent). Protein quantity and quality results of tested flour samples showed that the flour used in bakeries of Zanjan contain low level of protein (9.5 percent), and Zeleny and farynograph tests also indicates low protein quality of these samples.