Producing fruit powder by modern technology

Fruit powder is a product in the form of a fine powder made from raw materials from fresh fruit through production technology, and the final product has a moisture content of less than 5%.

What is fruit powder?

Fruit powder is a product in the form of a fine powder made from raw materials from fresh fruit through production technology, and the final product has a moisture content of less than 5%.

Advantages when producing soluble fruit powder

Products are diverse, because they are made from fresh fruits, the market has hundreds and thousands of different products made from fruits such as mango, orange, banana, apple, strawberry, passion fruit, avocado,...

Convenient to use due to small packaging, easy to use, available all year round.

Longer shelf life than other products such as fresh fruit, dried fruit,

Low storage and transportation costs

Methods for the production of fruit pulp

There are 3 main methods to produce fruit pulp: spray drying, sublimation drying, and freeze drying. Depending on the material, the appropriate drying method will be used.

Spray drying fruit powder

Spray drying is a technology that uses concentrated fruit juice to an appropriate concentration, then the juice is sprayed into a high-temperature drying chamber in the form of a mist. The drying process is so fast that it only takes a few seconds for the mist to be dried into a fine powdered product.

Advantages: Fast drying, the product is obtained in a fine powder form, so it does not need to be crushed after drying. Thanks to very fast drying, the material temperature does not rise because the drying time is very short, so it can be used to dry materials that cannot withstand high temperatures. Operating costs are relatively low, especially the drying tower has a large capacity.

Disadvantages: The size of the drying room is large and the speed of the drying agent is small, so the drying intensity is small (only about 2:25 kg/h.m3), consuming a lot of energy, cumbersome and complicated equipment.

Sublimation drying method

This is a modern drying technology, the moisture in the material is separated from the material by sublimation, that is, straight from the solid state to the vapor state, without going through the liquid state. The material drying base must create a large heat difference between the material and the external heat source. Therefore, the raw material must be dried in a solid state at a high vacuum of 0.1-1 mmHg, at this pressure, the material is dried below 0 degrees Celsius.

Advantages: High quality finished product is obtained, the product is not degraded, no biological and chemical reactions occur, protects the integrity of vitamins, keeps the original volume of the material but is more porous.

Cons: Very high production cost, high energy cost.

Freeze drying method

Freeze-dried fruit

This method is applicable to some fruits that can be dried crispy to make powder such as carrots, apples, strawberries, avocados, etc. Freeze drying uses low temperature to separate moisture from raw materials, after a long drying time from 8-10 hours the fruit will dry, have a certain crispness and can be ground into a fine powder.

Advantages: cheapest in fruit pulp production methods, simple equipment, easy operation, small and medium-sized production facilities can fully invest in business.

Disadvantages: restricting some types of fruit is not applicable, the quality of finished products will not be equal to the above 2 technologies but still meet production standards.

Production process of soluble fruit powder

Production of fruit powder by spray drying technology

- After being harvested, the fruits should be washed and peeled (if necessary). For large quantities, people use clean and anti-stamping industrial fruit washing machines.

If the fruit is large, it will be put into the vegetable slicer to cut into small pieces.

- Then put the fruit into the industrial juicer to get the extract.

- If the fruit extract is liquid, it will be concentrated by a concentrator or a vacuum concentrator so that the extract has a concentration of about 30-35%, which will minimize energy consumption in the spray drying stage.

- After extracting, it is put into a spray dryer, the extract will be dried into a smooth, fine fruit powder.

- After collecting spray-dried fruit powder, wait to cool, mix according to the manufacturer's recipe, it is packaged and brought to the market.

Producing fruit powder by freeze-drying and sublimation drying technology

In general, the process of making these two technologies is the same, only each step is different using a different dryer.

- Fruits are harvested, washed, peeled and sliced ​​as above.

- Put the fruit in the drying tray, set the appropriate drying temperature for each drying technology, for the sublimation dryer the temperature is below 0 degrees Celsius, and for the cold dryer, the drying temperature is from 20-45 degrees Celsius.

- After drying, check the finished product, dry, brittle, spongy, crushed, take it out to cool.

- Put the dried fruit into the ultra-fine flour mill to obtain a fine powdered fruit as required.

- Packing according to production standards.

VAFOST (By Bestfood)