Food Science and Engineering

Ensuring Beverage Excellence: A Quality Control Guide

Swetha Vasudevan — 2024-11-25

In the food industry, beverage is one of the important sectors that includes various alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. The quality of raw materials, equipment, and satisfaction of consumers are the important factors that determine the quality of the beverage manufacturing system. The nonfulfillment of any of the aforementioned factors can lead to the rejection of goods by consumers. This review paper provides a comprehensive examination of beverage quality control and addresses the various challenges faced by the beverage industry. The critical role of water quality in beverage production and the diverse quality attributes encompassing microbiological, physicochemical, and organoleptic characteristics are thoroughly discussed. The microbial contamination and poor product quality like off-flavor, unpleasant smell, and textural changes result in product recall. The quality of beverages can be ensured by sequential assessment of raw material quality, the process of production and packaging, microbial assessment, and sensorial attributes. The review also explores novel approaches such as biosensors, electronic tongues and noses, smart packaging, and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to address these issues. These developments provide novel solutions to ensure the quality and safety of products.

Vegan Fermented Drinks as an Alternative to Milk: Trend or Challenge?

Giovanna Camile Vaz Gonçalves — 2024-11-07

The attention given to food has increased in recent decades due to consumers' interest in the possible therapeutic and nutritional properties of foods. Eating habits are associated with the composition of the individual's gastrointestinal microbiota, so changes in the intake of macronutrients and fiber can induce changes in bacterial diversity. A healthy microbiota pattern tends to be observed when an individual includes fermented foods. However, most fermented foods are dairy products. They cannot be consumed by specific population groups, such as people who are lactose intolerant, allergic to milk protein, or for lifestyle and diet reasons, such as vegans and vegetarians. From this fact, there is a need to offer consumers an alternative non-dairy fermented product, exploring new substances to supply dietary probiotics. In this context, water kefir, a symbiotic culture of lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid, and yeast, stands out as a viable and affordable option, providing benefits similar to dairy versions without allergenic components that are undesirable for specific groups. Given the above, the objective of this work is to conduct a literature review on vegan fermented drinks, providing an overview of the fermentation process and matrices used, as well as presenting the factors that impact their adequate development, in addition to encouraging a discussion about the vegan fermented drinks market, including the issue of promoting research and development of new products from non-traditional sources, such as water-soluble vegetable extracts made from quinoa, cashew nuts, pistachios, among others.

A Comprehensive Review: Exploring Bioactive Compounds of Citrus Fruit Peels for Therapeutic and Industrial Applications

Soumi Chakraborty — 2024-11-28

Citrus fruit peel has recently been highlighted as one of the major wastes and by-products of the citrus industry, which offers a plethora of health benefits and industrial uses. In addition to the common micronutrients present in the whole fruits (including carbohydrates, fibre, vitamin C, potassium, folate, calcium, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B₆, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, riboflavin, and pantothenic acid), albeit in different proportions, citrus peels contain high amounts of pectin, vitamin C, and phytochemicals. The major phytochemicals present in citrus fruit peel include phenolic acids (caffeic, p-coumaric, ferulic, and sinapic acid), flavanones (naringin and hesperidin), and polymethoxylated flavones (nobiletin and tangeretin), which are important bioactive compounds. The phytochemical and therapeutic efficacies of citrus fruit waste are documented in several early studies; however, detailed information on the industrial uses of these bioactive components is limited. This article aims to highlight recent advancements in the diverse range of applications of citrus fruit peel, including its use as a natural flavouring, an essential oil, and a source of dietary fibre in preventing metabolic and infectious diseases. Moreover, this review discusses the processing methods (drying and extraction) of citrus fruit peel for industrial uses, offering insights that enhance the understanding of the importance of citrus fruit peel not only as a by-product but also as a substance of immense value to human health.

Impact of Hypobaric Technology Combined with Fumigation on Freshness Preservation of Post-harvest Litchi

Ankang Kan — 2024-11-19

Litchi is rich in nutrients, which is quite beneficial for improving the physical quality of people, but litchi browns in a few days at room temperature, and the shelf life is very short. To study the influence of hypobaric storage on the storage quality of litchi after harvest, a hypobaric storage device combined with fumigation technology was used to fumigate litchi, and the change in pressure and temperature distribution in the hypobaric chamber was simulated. Secondly, during the hypobaric fumigation, litchi was divided into four groups with uniform quality, and humidified at 0%, 2%, 3%, and 5%, respectively. The temperature of the surface and center of the litchi was measured using a thermocouple. The research results show that in the simulation verification, the changes in pressure and temperature in the vacuum chamber during the experiment are basically consistent with the simulated values, and under different humidification specific gravity, when the humidification specific gravity is 3%, the center temperature and surface temperature drop the fastest, in which the surface temperature drops to 277.15 K, and the center temperature drops to 283.15 K, and the hypobaric fumigation and pre-cooling reaching the same temperature. The time required is also minimal.