The Application of Sodium Alginate and Aqueous Extract of Kadam (Neolamarckia Cadamba) Leaf Coating to Extend the Shelf Life of Cape Gooseberry

Abstract

Cape gooseberries, a prominent exotic fruit, encounters challenges related to physiochemical and microbial deterioration during transportation and storage, resulting in post-harvest losses. To overcome this issue, alternative preservation methods have been developed, including the use of edible coating made from biopolymers enriched with pectin. This experiment aimed to utilize Sodium alginate (SA) combined with Kadam Leaf Extract (KLE) to create an edible SC for cape gooseberries, and to assess its impact on prolonging shelf life. Cape gooseberries tend to deteriorate over time, indicated by factors such as WL, hardness loss, pH, colour, TA, TSS, spoilage percentage, maturity index and microbial growth. For this study, cape gooseberries were divided into five groups, each consisting of thirty cape gooseberry fruits. All the samples were kept at ambient temperature (25 °C). During the 30 days storage period, all samples experienced significant increase (p < 0.05) in weight loss percentage, pH, TSS, MI, spoilage percentage, and microbial growth, the increase was prominently more significant in the control samples. The significant decrease (p < 0.05) in hardness and TA was more pronounced in uncoated samples compared to the coated ones. SA + KLE coating effectively delayed all the changes over the storage time as compared to the control groups. Conc.2 exhibited the least changes in all the factors analysed in this experiment. The observation of this study indicate that SA coating infused with KLE possess the capability to maintain the quality and prolong the shelf life of cape gooseberries.