Severe acute malnutrition (sam) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in indian children below five years of age. in india, over 9 million children suffer from sam. upto 15% sam children require inpatient management because of medical complications; remaining 85% can be taken care of by home care/diet management. a project was need to develop formulation and manufacturing technology for low-cost, shelf stable, protein and energy dense ready-to-eat therapeutic food (rte-tf) to treat sam. in this work, pilot scale process standardization and performance evaluations of machineries (processing and packaging) are presented. major unit operations viz., roasting, de-skinning, grinding, mixing, homogenization, packaging, and cleaning in-place (cip) were standardized. the raw ingredients were characterized for physic-chemical attributes prior to use in the formulation guided by the experimental designs. the optimum operating parameters for grain roasting and cooling units were 165-170 °c for 14-15 min at 20 rpm drum speed and feed rate 82.6 kg/h at 5 rpm, respectively. the optimum parameters to roast peanuts, maize, and soybean were 185-186 ºc for 20-22 min, 189-190ºc for 30-32 min, and 165-170 ºc for 18-20 min, respectively. roasted peanuts were best de-skinned at outlet opening and rotating speed of 4.6 - 9.6 mm and 1400 rpm, respectively. the feed rates of 17-18 and 16-17 kg/h gave less 200 µm particle yield of 77 % and 85 %, respectively, during grinding of roasted maize and soybean. the optimum performance of henschel mixer was 20-23 kg and 30-40 min, batch size and grinding-cum-mixing time for roasted peanuts. twenty min circulation time in the colloidal mill was found suitable as the weight of the material with particle size lower than 200 μm during the fine grinding of peanut paste. optimum mixing condition was achieved when a batch of ingredients (wet: peanut paste, soybean oil, emulsifiers, stabilizers; dry: roasted maize and soybean flour, skimmed milk powder, sugar, vitamin-mineral premix) were mixed in ploughshare mixer for 40-45 min at 120 rpm. a homogenizer (colloidal mill) clearance of 190 µm resulted in a smooth rte-tf (< 200 µm) with negligible oil separation upon standing. form fill seal (ffs) machine when operated at 112 and 119 ºc gave best for vertical and horizontal sealing strength, respectively. for cleaning-in-place (cip), treatment with hot-water (60 ºc/40 min), alkali solution (1.56% w/v)) (70ºc/37 min), acid solution (1.12% w/v) (71 ºc, 39 min), and per acetic acid solution (1.07%) (19.56 ºc/ 15 min) gave satisfactory results. the shelf-life of rte-tf packaged in afl/mfl laminates was 120 days under accelerated conditions (40 °c, 90% rh) and more than 20 months under ambient conditions.