Characterization of Eriobotrya Japonica Loquat Food and Development of Standardized Marketable Products

Abstract

Fruits are essential commodities in food sector as considered nutritional security and safety. There are numerous underutilized fruits in India and loquat is comes under the category of underutilized. Present work was categories two phases (i) Development of loquat slices (ii) Development of loquat pulp powder. Three drying methods was selected to study the effect of different drying methods on physicochemical, microstructural, Shelf life, textural properties and sensory analysis of loquat slices. Uniform size of loquat slices treated with 1% potassium meta bisulphite were taken for drying. These slices were dried by using different drying techniques i.e. tray drying (45°C ,55 °C, 65°C), vacuum drying (55 °C, at 500 mm Hg) and freeze drying (-40°C,0.006 bar). Physical properties of dried slice were assessed by bulk density (BD), tap density (TD), Carr index (CI), Hausner ratio (HR), porosity, rehydration ratio (RR), coefficient of rehydration (COR), dehydration ratio (RR) and hygroscopicity. Color value was analysed in terms of L*, a*, b*, total color difference (TCD), Hue, Croma and browning index (BI). Hardness was analysed by using texture analyser. It was observed that freeze-dried slices shows decreasing trend of all aspects of physical properties except rehydration ratio and coefficient of rehydration. Freeze-dried samples showed less change in BI and TCD among all the samples. It was found that freeze-dried rehydrated sample reflect lowest hardness than other rehydrated samples. Dried slices was packed in HDPE pouches and stored at room temperature (35°C, 45 RH) for further study. Loquat pulp powder was developed with two Carrier agents namely maltodextrin and gum Arabic by all three drying. All physical properties, WSI, and WAI, Particle size distribution, storage life and color quality was studied. Finally estimated cost was analysed and it was found that pulp powder coast (2226 Rs/ kg) is quite higher than dried slice (1472 Rs. /kg).