MSc

The present experiment entitled “Development of karonda based products” was aimed at developing products for the utilization of the underexploited karonda. In this study organoleptic, nutritional, shelf life qualities and also consumer acceptance and preference of the developed products were investigated.

Karonda is an underexploited oblong berry with speakable nutritive value, acidic in taste, negligible sugar content, appreciable vitamin C content and suitable for production of many processed products. In this study attempts have been made successfully to prepare jelly, candy, canned fruit and wine following suitably standardized procedures. The fruit had high pectin value lending its feasibility for making suitable processed products.

Visualising the acceptability of the developed products, it was observed that in the case of Karonda jelly best sensory quality attribute was found when the products was prepared in the 4:3 proportion of fruit extract sugar ratio. In the case of Karonda candy, the candy prepared by three weeks impregnation in sugar maintained the top score in all attributes. Coming to canned karonda the best results were attained for the treatment by pitting and without hardening with CaCl2 and for wine the most acceptable treatment was when boiled water was added to the fruit and this attained the best results in case of various quality attribute.

The nutritional and chemical composition of the standardized products revealed that chemical characters of all karonda products were in accordance with the characters of similar products prepared from other fruits. The karonda products developed were compared with FPO specification and were found to satisfy the FPO requirements.

Cost analysis of the karonda products revealed candy to be the cheapest among the four items, with wine ranking second place and jelly achieving the third place. Cost of canned was comparatively higher due to the expense of processing. However an overall analysis revealed that the cost was lower in comparison with similar products prepared from conventional fruits. Coming to fruit product yield ratio, the highest yield was attained for wine followed by candy jelly and canned karonda.

Consumer acceptance and preference of the standardized products were determined. The results revealed that the highly acceptable performance was obtained for jelly followed by candy, wine and canned fruit. Results of preference ranking revealed that wine was preferred most followed by jelly, candy and canned karonda.

Parameters selected to ascertain the shelf life qualities of these products were acidity, PH total sugar, TSS, overall acceptability and microbial examination. There was an increase in acidity during storage for jelly and a minimal increase for wine in contrast to candy and canned karonda where there was a decrease in former parameter and no significant change for the latter. Coming to PH, there was a decrease in PH for jelly and wine while there was an increase in PH for candy and there was no significant change for canned fruit. Considering TSS, for jelly and candy it was constant and a decrease was observed for wine and canned karonda. On storage however for total sugar there was a decrease for jelly and wine in contrast to candy and canned fruit where there was an increase. Storage upto eight months did not alter the sensory attributes to considerable levels. Moreover the palatability of wine could be improved with storage. All the products were organoleptically acceptable and maintained good quality parameters on storage under ambient conditions. For all the four products, microbial examination revealed negative results.

To conclude the present attempt had been a successful innovation in the preparation of highly acceptable products from the underexploited karonda fruit and also an encouragement for preparation of other good quality products which could increase the acceptability and multiplicity of this neglected berry in addition to bring extra fruit wealth to our country. Therefore efforts should be adopted to incorporate standard techniques to diversify the products developed.