Cost-effectiveness assessment of dried raspberry production

Abstract

This paper analyses different cost-effectiveness aspects of dried raspberry production. The drying performed was convective using straw as the main source of heat. A relatively small dryer, favorable for family farm production, was used with a capacity of 400 kg of raw material per day. The duration of raspberry drying is 15 days, whereas the duration of fruit drying season amounts to 135 days a year. Fresh raspberries, as the main raw material, have the greatest impact on the production costs of dried raspberry, with a share of 63.7 %, followed by significant packaging costs (28.3 %), labor costs (4.73 %) and energy consumption costs (1.21 %). Such cost structure primarily results from using straw as the main energy source, inasmuch as straw is considerably less expensive than other available fuels. The analysis shows that in the 15-days production of dried raspberries is realized a profit of around 6,210 €, which can be considered as a very good financial result. Furthermore, the economics of production coefficient is 1.41 and the rate of production accumulation is 28.8 %.

Keywords

• dried raspberries
• costs
• cost-effectiveness
• comparative analysis