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Optimization of blanching process for tender jackfruit (Artocarpus

heterophyllus L.)

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 OPTIMIZATION OF BLANCHING PROCESS FOR TENDER
JACKFRUIT (ARTOCARPUS HETEROPHYLLUS L.)
Pritty S. Babua, Sudheer K. P.a*

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.), an important Indian seasonal fruit, is rich in

vitamins, minerals, proteins and carbohydrates. Research focusing on the processing of
tender jackfruit is very meager. This study was designed to optimize the blanching time, and
preservative treatment, a prerequisite to thermal processing of tender jack fruit. It was found
that blanching time was highly significant in relation to texture and colour, whereas the
preservatives used during blanching significantly affected the colour parameter (P < 0.001)
only. Blanching process at 100oC for 1min using 0.3% citric acid as preservative was found
to be the best in terms of sensory attributes (texture and colour) and enzyme inactivation. The
optimized blanching process facilitate easy filling of samples during canning and offer better
shelf life for canned tender jackfruit.
Keywords: Tender jackfruit, blanching, texture, colour

INTRODUCTION and Prasad, 1996). Blanching, an

Jackfruit is an important Indian seasonal
fruit, as well as a vegetable grown in
limited areas (about 26,000 ha) across the
country and is believed to be the native of
Western Ghats (Morton, 1987). This
largest fruit in world belongs to the family
Moraceae (mulberry family) and is
monoecious with both male and female
inflorescences on the same tree (Bose,
1985). Jackfruit, once considered as a
heavenly fruit in history, has lost its status
and is one of the under exploited fruits of
the country today (Samaddar, 1985; Mitra
& Mani, 2000). The highly perishable
nature as a result of its inherent
composition and textural characteristics
has limited its storage for a long time
which adversely affected its market
potential. Hence it is necessary to develop
processing technologies like blanching and
thermal processing, which facilitates the
extension of shelf life of jackfruit.
The production of canned preserves is a
usual technique employed for long-term
preservation. Pre-treatment is common in
most processing operation to improve
product quality or process efficiency (Jha
important pre-treatment of canning, is
performed to reduce enzymatic browning
through thermal inactivation of polyphenol
oxidase as well as to induce volume
contraction (shrinkage) prior to thermal
processesing and to thus make the product
more pliable to facilitate filling operations
(Biekman et al., 1996). Peroxidase enzyme
is generally considered as the reference
enzyme for blanching treatments, due to its
high thermal resistance and high
concentration in most vegetables (Song et
al., 2003). However, the extraction of
valuable nutritious components, partial
biochemical conversions of components
resulting in changes in aroma and
deteriorative effects on sensory properties
like texture and colour are some negative
features of blanching (Matser et al., 2000,
Kotwaliwale et al., 2007). Therefore, to
improve the product quality it is desirable
to minimize the impact of heat treatment,
however keeping the peroxidase enzyme
inactivation to a suitable residual level
(Bahceci et al., 2005).
As the research on jackfruit has not been
much discussed in literature, the present

a
Department of Post-Harvest Technology and Agricultural Processing, Kelappaji College of Agricultural
Engineering & Technology (KCAET), Kerala Agricultural University, Tavanur, Kerala -679573, India
E-mail: drkpsudheer@gmail.com

Indian J. Dairy and Biosci., 23, 2012

Blanching of Tender Jackfruit
study focuses on the optimization of
blanching process, including blanching
time and pre-treatment to extend the shelf
life without much alteration in nutritional
and organoleptic qualities of the canned
jackfruit.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sample preparation:Tender jackfruit
(Artocarpus heterophyllus L. cv ‘Varikka’)
harvested at 50-70 days after fruit
formation were procured from the KCAET
Instructional Farm, Tavanur, Kerala
Agricultural University, Thrissur. The
collected jackfruits were washed, peeled
and cut into pieces of almost uniform size
and subjected to further analysis.
Blanching time optimization: Boiling
water method was used for blanching the
washed tender jackfruit as the pH of
jackfruit was below 4.5 (Srivastava and
Sanjeev, 1994; Sudheer and Indira, 2007).
Two hundred and fifty grams of the
sample was placed in a batch type stainless
steel hot water blancher (600 x 300 x 300
mm with thermostat arrangement
fabricated for the analysis) at 100oC for
different durations of time (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
min) forming five temperature-time
combinations as represented as B1, B2,
B3, B4 and B5. After blanching, the
samples were instantly cooled in distilled
water-bath at room temperature to avoid
over cooking and discolouration
(Dattatreya et al., 2006), followed by
spreading samples over Whatman No.4
filter paper to remove excess water. Then
the samples were subjected to quality
analyses. The blanching time was initially
standardized based on hydrogen peroxide
(H2O2) test. The time of blanching at
which the pink colour disappeared was
considered to be the optimum time for
blanching (Sudheer and Indira, 2007). In
addition to peroxidase inactivation the
study utilizes colour and texture as
indicators of hot water blanching time
optimization.
Texture evaluation: Texture
measurements were performed in a
Texture Analyzer (Stable Micro-System
Ltd., UK), using a 50 N load cell and
equipped with a 5 mm diameter probe. A
double compression measurement was
made on each sample with trigger force of
0.5kg (10 mm depth of penetration,
velocity of 10 mm s-1). Force–distance
curves were recorded and firmness
(maximum peak force, N) and toughness
(area under force-distance curve, N.sec)
were used as indicators of textural
parameters (Goncalves et al., 2007). At
least three measurements were done for
each tested condition.
Colour evaluation: The colour of blanched
tender jackfruit samples was assessed
using a Hunter Lab colorimeter (Mini Scan
XE Plus) and a Commission International
de l’ Eclairage (CIE) standard illuminant C
to determine CIE colour space co-
ordinates, ‘L’ ‘a’ ‘b’ values. The sample
colour was measured by filling the cut
samples of tender jackfruit in the
transparent cup without any void space.
The deviation of colour of samples from
the standard were observed and recorded
in the computer interface (Goncalves et al.,
2007). Each sample was replicated three
times and the average value of ‘L’, ‘a’ and
‘b’ were determined.
Based on the estimated quality parameters
viz; texture, colour and enzyme
inactivation, the most appropriate
temperature-time combination was
estimated.
Blanching treatment optimization: The
optimized blanching time-temperature
combination was used to standardize the
blanching treatment. Potassium meta
bisulphite (Dattatreya et al., 2006) and
citric acid (Patricia et al., 2007) are
considered as the best preservatives for
blanching process. The prepared tender
jackfruit samples were dipped in boiling
water (BT1), and boiling water containing
0.1% potassium meta bisulphite, KMS
(BT2), 0.3% citric acid (BT3) and
combination of 0.1% KMS and 0.3% citric
acid (BT4). The blanched samples were
cooled immediately in distilled water-bath
at room temperature after respective
Indian J. Dairy and Biosci., 23, 2012
Blanching of Tender Jackfruit

treatment and subjected to texture and Texture degradation

colour analysis for selection of the most The texture of blanched tender jackfruit
appropriate blanching treatment. slices subjected to compression tests on
Data analysis: Statistical analyses were the texture analyzer are shown in Fig 1.
carried out to study the effect of different The texture was defined by two general
parameters on all the dependent variables. terms namely, firmness and toughness.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was The firmness and toughness for blanched
conducted with completely randomized samples were lower than that of fresh
design (CRD) for optimization of different samples. From the figures it is evident that
parameters involved in this study using both parameters show a decreasing trend
software SPSS statistics version 17.0. with the blanching time. Similar trend was
(SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). reported by Goncalves et al., (2010) during
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION blanching of raw carrots. The values were
Standardization of blanching time: higher for one minute and lower for five
Jackfruit samples which were subjected to minute blanched samples. The firmness
blanching at different time duration (N) and toughness (N.sec) values for the
showed negative result for H2O2 test. The fresh tender jackfruit sample were 76.11 ±
time required to inactivate the peroxidase 0.349 and 97.14 ± 0.123 respectively. The
enzyme so that the pink colour disappears firmness reduced in the order of 14% and
could be considered as the optimum time 34% for samples blanched for one minute
for blanching (Sudheer and Indira, 2007). and five minute respectively, while the
All other enzymes would have been percent reduction in toughness was found
inactivated at this particular time and to be about 20% and 48% for the same
temperature combination (Srivastava and samples. It indicated that one minute
Sanjeev, 1994; Sudheer and Indira, 2007). blanching is sufficient to soften the tissues
In the present study, the complete of samples to facilitate easy filling during
inactivation of the high heat resistant canning process. Among all treatments, the
enzymes in the sample was observed textural qualities of one minute blanched
within one minute of blanching and thus samples were found to be nearer to that of
one minute blanching (B1) was considered the fresh sample.
as the optimum time for tender jackfruit
blanching.

100 100
Toughness (N.Sec)

80 80
Firmness (N)

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
Fresh B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 Fresh B1 B2 B3 B4 B5
Treatments Treatments

Fig.1. Textural properties of blanched tender jackfruit

Colour changes:The Hunter colorimeter colour more than for other samples. The
colour values (Fig 2) showed that one average CIE colour values viz., ‘L’, ‘a’
minute blanched samples retained the and ‘b’ of the reference raw sample were

Indian J. Dairy and Biosci., 23, 2012

Blanching of Tender Jackfruit

83.74, 0.36 and 18.93 respectively. While
increasing the processing time, ‘L’ and ‘b’
values decreased, while slight loss in
greenness was noted. Similar colour
alterations were observed by Sims et al.
(1993) for carrot juice, Bao and Chang
(1994), for carrots and Barreiro et al.
(1997) for tomato paste and Avila and
Silva (1999) for peach puree.
The change in colour (∆E) was found to be
higher during five minute blanching and
100
was minimum for one minute blanched
samples (40.76 ± 0.174 and 33.44 ± 0.185
respectively). Chroma is the indicator of
colour saturation and intensity. The higher
its values are, the more desirable a food
product is. The decrease in chroma values
with rise in temperature and processing
time revealed the effect of blanching on
the colour of the commodity. Similar
findings were reported by Vina et al.
(2007) and Lespinard et al. (2009).

80
Color values

L a b chroma
60

40

20

0
Fresh B1 B2 B3 B4 B5
Treatments
Fig.2. Colour changes due to blanching of tender jackfruit

Table 1 Effect of blanching time on the texture and colour of samples

Firmness Toughness
Treatment ‘L’ ‘a’ ‘b’
(N) (N-sec)
B1 65.48a 77.44a 50.42a 0.54a 16.08a
B2 64.68a 75.45b 48.75b 0.58a 15.73ab
B3 58.46b 68.55c 47.28c 0.61a 15.32bc
B4 48.60c 63.99d 43.78d 1.21b 14.71c
B5 42.82d 42.53e 43.45d 1.32c 12.83d
Superscript indicates significance (P<0.05)

Statistical analysis of effect of blanching multiple range test for treatment

time:The results obtained for blanching
time optimization were statistically
analyzed. The analysis of variance
(ANOVA) associated with Duncan’s
simple Completely Randomized Design
(CRD) was implemented to find the most
suitable combination. Texture and colour
were significantly influenced by the time
of blanching chosen for the study at 0.1%
significant level. Table 1 shows the effect
of blanching time on the texture and colour
of samples with the results of Duncan’s
comparison. As already discussed, a better
treatment would be the one with least
deviation in the quality characteristics as
that of the fresh sample (e.g., minimum
∆E). This restricted us to focus only on the
first two treatments (B1 and B2). These
two treatments were on par for most of the
texture and colour values. Among these
two treatments, B1 (blanching at 100oC for
one minute) was chosen as the best
treatment because the quality
characteristics best resembled that of the

Indian J. Dairy and Biosci., 23, 2012

Blanching of Tender Jackfruit
fresh sample and also clocked the least
blanching time amongst all treatments.
Standardization of blanching treatment:
Effect of preservatives on textural
qualities of blanched tender jackfruit:
The effect of different preservatives on
texture in terms of firmness and toughness
of the blanched samples are shown in Fig
3. It was observed that the textural
attributes were not much affected by the
addition of preservative as justified by
100
80
Firmness (N)
60
40
20
0 0
Fresh BT1 BT2 BT3
Treatments
Fig.3. Effect of preservatives on texture of blanched tender jackfruit
Effect of preservatives on colour of
blanched tender jackfruit: The Hunter
colour parameters (‘L’, ‘a’, ‘b’ and
chroma) of tender jackfruit samples during
different blanching treatments are
presented in Fig 4. The difference in
colour (∆E) values for each treatment from
fresh samples was also recorded. As
illustrated in the Fig 4, the colour values
followed the same trend for the treatment
BT1. The pattern was typically opposite in
case of treatments with preservatives in
which ‘L’-value increased (lighter than the
standard sample), ‘a’-value decreased
(gain in greenness) and ‘b’-value increased
(gain in yellowness). The gain in green
colour of the treated sample is due to the
inhibition in transformation of chlorophyll
into pheophytin which gives a brownish
colour. The inhibition is due to
preservatives like KMS and citric acid
raises the pH of the blanching water (NIIR
Board, 2003). The maximum value for ‘L’
and ‘b’ were found in treatment BT3 and
minimum in treatment BT1. On the other
their similar values for all treatments
(Chowdhury et al., 2009). The firmness for
the treatments BT1, BT2, BT3 and BT4
were 33.39 ± 0.68, 34.87 ± 0.31, 34.42 ±
0.46 and 33.16 ± 0.53 N, respectively.
Similarly less significant difference was
found for toughness of treatment BT4. For
the treatments BT1, BT2, BT3 and BT4,
the values of toughness were estimated to
be 86.64 ± 0.57, 87.18 ± 0.37, 86.6 ± 0.23
and 85.95 ± 0.36 N.Sec, respectively.
120
Toughness (N.Sec)
100
80
60
40
20
BT4 Fresh BT1 BT2 BT3 BT4
Treatments
hand ‘a’ was highest in BT1 and lowest in
BT3 with value -0.74 and -1.48
respectively. Most desirable product
represented by its highest chroma value
was found in treatment BT3 and lowest in
BT1 with values 19.78 ± 0.374 and 16.80
± 0.472 respectively. Hence the blanching
in 0.3% citric acid (BT3) performed as the
better pre-treatment in terms of colour
parameters.
Statistical analysis of effect of blanching
treatment: The statistical analysis for the
effect of preservatives used in blanching
on textural and colour properties is shown
in the Table 2. Blanching treatment
significantly affected the texture and
colour at 0.1% significant level. From the
Table, it is evident that the treatments BT2
and BT3 were on par except for ‘L’ values.
Based on the colour values and with the
statistical results, BT3 was chosen as an
appropriate treatment satisfying all the
conditions.
Indian J. Dairy and Biosci., 23, 2012
Blanching of Tender Jackfruit

100
L a b Chroma
80

Color values
60

40

20

0
Fresh BT1 BT2 BT3 BT4
-20
Treatments

Fig. 4 Effect of preservatives on colour of blanched tender jackfruit

Table 2 Effect of blanching preservatives on texture and colour of samples

Firmness Toughness
Treatment ‘L’ ‘a’ ‘b’ Chroma
(N) (N-sec)
BT1 33.39b 86.64a 51.21d -0.74b 16.79b 16.80b
BT2 34.87a 87.18a 65.14c -1.36a 18.51a 18.56a

BT3 34.42a 86.60a 75.34a -1.47a 19.73a 19.78a

BT4 33.16b 85.95b 66.13b -1.46a 18.90a 18.95a
Superscript indicates significance (P<0.05)

CONCLUSION degradation of colour in peach puree. J

The results of the study may help to define
optimal hot water blanching conditions
necessary for retaining the quality along
with the increase in shelf life of canned
tender jackfruit. Based on peroxidase
inactivation, colour and texture, tender
jackfruit blanching at 100oC for 1 min
using 0.3% citric acid as preservative was
found to be optimum. As blanching is a
prerequisite for canning process, the
present study provides an optimum
blanching process for canning of tender
jackfruit. This may extend the shelf life of
the product and ensures its year round
availability.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge Kerala
Agricultural University for financial
support for conducting the study.
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