Product development of sweet potato dry noodle using Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Abstract

The current consumption pattern of Indonesian consumers is increasingly diverse, creating a challenge for the industry to develop products. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a reliable tool to create a new product. One of the demanded products is dry noodle. However, the challenge is that the raw material, flours, is imported. Therefore, the alternative raw material is required to reduce wheat consumption. Sweet potatoes are local agricultural products which have the potential to be used as flour substitution to produce dry noodles. The purposes of this study were to determine consumer needs of dry noodles and to assess the organoleptic quality of sweet potato dry noodle. This study executed phase 1 and 2 of the QFD method. In the first phase, the QFD was used to determine consumer needs of dry noodles. There were 100 respondents involved by filling a questionnaire. The list of consumer needs were then used in the second phase to assess the potential of sweet potato dry noodles and compared it with two existing dried noodles products. Fifteen respondents performed a sensory test for the second phase. The results showed that there were 11 attributes of the dry noodles required by consumers. Sweet potato dry noodle was considered unable to satisfy the panellists. Besides, its quality should be improved by choosing high-quality raw materials and by adding wheat flour or dry gluten in the composition of sweet potato dry noodles. It is believed to affect the texture and elasticity of sweet potato dry noodles.