Saurabh Surana Mentors Dehydration Methods Training at Foodtech Pathshala, New Delhi

Earlier this week, Mirai Organics co-founder Saurabh Surana was invited to mentor a Dehydration Methods Training at Foodtech Pathshala in New Delhi. The room was full of food entrepreneurs, processors and people planning their first dehydration unit — and the brief was simple: explain how commercial drying actually works, without the sales pitch.

Rather than a textbook overview, the session drew directly on what we run every day at our facility in Panchkula, Haryana — the equipment, the trade-offs between drying methods, and the mistakes that cost new processors the most.

Heat pump enabled dehydrators

A large part of the session focused on heat-pump-enabled dehydrators. Unlike a basic hot-air dryer that simply vents moist air out, a heat pump system recovers heat from the extracted air and recirculates it. That gives far tighter control over temperature and humidity across the full drying cycle — which is what makes it possible to dry at a low, steady 50–55°C and still finish batches on schedule, even in humid weather.

Saurabh walked through photos of the heat pump units from our own floor — how the chamber is laid out, how airflow is routed across the trays, and why energy efficiency matters more than purchase price once a unit is running daily.

Electric heater based tray dryers

The second half covered the electric heater based tray dryer — the workhorse most small and mid-sized processors start with. Using a cross-section diagram, the session broke the machine down into its parts and how they work together:

• Heat source — electric heating elements that warm the incoming air
• Fan and air inlet — pulling in fresh air and driving it across the chamber
• Trays on a track — stacked mesh trays so hot air can pass evenly over every layer
• Air exhaust — venting moisture-laden air out of the drying chamber

The key takeaway: a tray dryer is only as good as its airflow. Uneven circulation means the trays nearest the heat source over-dry while the ones furthest away stay under-dried — inside the same batch. Rotating trays, loading them evenly and cutting produce to a uniform size all help close that gap.

Choosing the right drying method

There's no single best dryer — only the right one for your product, volume and budget. The comparison shared during the session looked roughly like this:

Why we do sessions like this

Mirai Organics was started by Swati and Saurabh Surana to build a dependable, chemical-free source of dehydrated produce. A lot of what we know came from trial, error and generous people who shared what they'd learned. Mentoring at places like Foodtech Pathshala is our way of passing that on — a stronger, better-informed food processing ecosystem in India is good for everyone in it, including our buyers.

Good dehydration isn't about the most expensive machine. It's about controlling temperature, humidity and airflow — and doing it the same way every single batch.

A big thank you to the Foodtech Pathshala team for having us, and to every participant for the sharp questions — especially on energy costs and scaling up from a single dryer. More photos from the session are up on our gallery.