They are looking at preservation of wood apple, which is a highly perishable and seasonal fruit. It can be preserved by processing into various value-added products like chutney, fruit bar, RTS, squash, nectar, pickle, jam, jelly, pulp powder to use it all round the year.
Cultivation of improved varieties of bael is sweet and fresh ripe pulp is used for preparation of value-added products, which have high demand due to health benefits.
The key objectives of the training programme for fruit growers and food processors was to provide improved varieties, propagation and cultivation of wood apple. The effort was to impart hands-on training for fruit powder, beverage and other value-added products from both wood apple and bael.
“Both fruits have bright prospects for cultivation in India due to its ability to grow well under the waste and problematic soil conditions,” stated Dr M V Dhananjaya, CEO, BESST-HORT, ICAR-IIHR.
“The training imparts hands-on exposure on preparation of processed products from wood apple and bael fruit, which can be taken up as an entrepreneurial activity,” he added.
This is where the training programme comes into play. “Most of our training sessions have evinced good response with participants travelling from across India,” said Dr Dhananjaya.
It also helps the women to start a small-scale production unit at home level to supplement their incomes by enabling self-employment in rural sector. This type of value addition by different nutritional fruit certainly helps in income generation of the entrepreneurs at large and promotes good nutrition.
The ripe fruit pulp mostly used to prepare excellent chutney and it can also be consumed fresh adding sugar to it. A fruit with such diverse values and immense potentialities indicates its potential for processing into value added products and their commercialisation.
An earlier research effort by IIHR indicated that wood apple blended fruit bars were qualitatively accepted and fit for consumption up to 6-month of storage at refrigerated condition. Further, wood apple fruit extract can be used in food processing companies like beverages or bakery industry. Also in a few South East Asian countries like Sri Lanka, wood apple cream is processed from the fruit pulp and is canned and exported.