Effect of pre-treatment and packaging on quality of β-carotene rich mango powder

Abstract

Pre standardized mango & carrot (80:20) blended pulp was treated with different proportion of maltodextrin MD (drying aid) and tri-calcium phosphate, TCP (anti-caking agent) along with control and dried in a mechanical drier into thin layer at 58±2ºC for 12 h, to obtain a moisture content of 4-5 percent. The dehydrated material was grounded in a laboratory powder mill and sieve with 30 mesh sieve. The powder was packed in 200 gauge HDPE and 400 gauge LDPE pouches with two made of pack AP&NP and was stored at low temperature (70C) and ambient condition (18-35oC) up to 6 months for storage study. The powder was evaluated for its quality characteristics in respect of acidity, sugars, antioxidant, phenol, ascorbic acid, non-enzymatic browning (NEB) before packaging and during storage. To reduce powder stickiness and caking requires amount of MD and TCP were optimized on the powder properties. The amount of MD (0.25 kg per kg dry mango solids) and TCP (0.15 kg per kg dry mango solids) with the values of degree of caking (19.25%) and stickiness point temperature (45.34oC) were found to be optimum for reducing the powder stickiness, caking and nutritional parameters. The adsorption isotherm of powder was found to be type-II sigmoid and 200 g HDPE as packaging material followed by storage at low temperature were selected as best process.