Osmotic dehydration of mulberry: Effect of pretreatment and processing conditions on the quality attributes

Mulberry (Morus albaL.) is having numerous natural phytocompounds, which possess nutritional and pharmaceutical value. Due to its perishable nature and limited availability, it is not yet much explored except for its value addition. However, the wholesomeness in terms of shape has been always ignored. Therefore, the aim of present study was to optimize the processing conditions for production of osmo-dehydrated (OD) mulberry and retaining the shape of the fruit. The effect of three process variables i.e., blanching time (0 to 180 s), syrup concentration (45 to 75 obrix) and drying temperature (45–60 °C) was evaluated on the quality attributes of OD mulberry. All the phytochemicals were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) affected during processing conditions. The optimized conditions for the development of OD mulberry were 170 s blanching time, 66.52°brix syrup concentration and 53.48 °C drying temperature with 0.84 desirability. All the variables possess an important role in the quality of mulberry as revealed during cluster analysis. The optimized sample had more nutritional and phytochemical potential as confirmed during the qualitative analysis. In a nutshell, it is concluded that optimized conditions can be used to produce OD mulberry along with maintenance of original shape and to make it available at off places and during off seasons.