Accelerated shelf‐life study on protein‐enriched carbonated fruit drink

Carbonated beverages are the most popular beverages due to its thirst quenching, fizziness, and refreshing nature. Carbonated drink covers almost half of the total soft drink consumption. Growth rate of soft drinks value is around 11% over the last 2 years. Carbonated fruit drink was prepared using different concentrations of guava fruit juice and egg albumin to develop protein‐enriched carbonated fruit drink. The physicochemical and nutritional properties were studied and the changes were observed with respect to carbonation and egg albumin fortification. The best result was obtained for fruit drink containing 30% fruit juice and 15% egg albumin fortification showed protein content of 10.1 g/100 g. The accelerated storage conditions in the study were 14 and 40°C with 90% relative humidity. The predicted shelf life was 60 days for protein‐enriched carbonated guava drink and 131 days for carbonated guava drink at refrigerated condition without any artificial preservative. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Guava fruit is a rich source of vitamin C and antioxidants like carotene and lycopene, whereas egg albumin is a rich source of essential amino acids and is a complete protein. Lack of nutrition in the carbonated drinks in the present era leads to the development of this drink. Combination of egg albumin with guava makes the carbonated drink more nutritious and this drink can be a very good alternative for carbonated drinks especially whey‐based fruit drinks. Accelerated shelf‐life study can save time to check the shelf stability of the new product launch to the market.