The Northern Crops Institute at NDSU is scheduled to host plant managers, production directors, research managers and technologists from various pasta companies Tuesday, April 17, through Thursday, April 19. During the course, more than 30 participants will hear a number of speakers and learn fundamentals of pasta production processing and quality assurance.

Course participants will have a chance for hands-on pilot-scale pasta processing followed by a cooking exercise to evaluate the final product. Group activities include an exercise in identifying pasta processing defects, and a field trip to a pasta manufacturer. There will also be quality tests employed in the evaluation of raw materials and a demonstration of the finished products.

The purpose of the course is to provide an introduction to the fundamental and applied aspects of manufacturing extruded pasta products that also will include raw material quality criteria and the impact of specifications and processing variables.

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