Enhancing the shelf life of sapodilla manilkara zapota by value addition

Abstract

Sapodilla is a seasonal perishable fruit which has thin brown peel and yellowish brown pulp with pleasant aroma and excellent taste. It is a climacteric in nature since it begins ripening after immediate harvest. The ripen sapodilla is highly perishable and needs to be utilized within two or three days. The lack of processing and storage leads to enormous amount of quantity and quality losses during seasonal time. To improve the availability and reduce the losses, the sapodilla needs to be processed or converted into value added products. Conversion of sapodilla fruit into value added products could improve the availability during off season and adds value to the crops. Dehydrated fruit and fruit powder are the two important value added products which would be produced by simple drying methods. Dehydrated fruit can be produced by osmotic dehydration in which food samples immersed in osmotic solutions such as sucrose solutions and salt solutions. After osmotic treatment, food samples need to be dried further using convective drying or novel drying methods. The fruit powder can be produced by various drying methods such as spray drying, drum drying, freeze drying and foam mat drying. The spray drying is commonly employed for large scale low viscous food materials like milk. It is not suitable for small scale operation and high viscous materials. Drum drying is suitable for high viscous materials but the heat sensitive components cannot be retained. Similarly, the freeze drying is suitable for heat sensitive materials but the capital and operational cost are higher. The foam mat drying is simple and efficient drying method suitable for all kinds of food materials and different scale of operations. In this study, dehydrated fruit was produced by osmotic dehydration followed by hot air drying or air assisted infrared drying method. newline