Pineapple (Ananas cosmosus) product processing: A review

Pineapple is the third most important tropical fruit in the world. It is known as the queen of fruits due to its excellent flavor and taste. It is good for the digestive system and helps in maintaining ideal weight and balanced nutrition. Processed pineapples are consumed worldwide and processing industries are trying out or using new technologies to retain the nutritional quality of the pineapple fruit. This is to meet the demand of consumers who want healthy, nutritious and natural products. The main objective of processing technique is to convert perishable fruits into stable products with longer life. Main purpose of processing is to minimize the qualitative and quantitative deterioration of the produce after harvest. Major export products include dried and preserved vegetables, jams, fruit juice, candy, wine. Moreover, some of these preserved products such as canned pineapple, fruit juices, dehydrated products and frozen fruits are gaining popularity in the foreign market and are good foreign exchange earners. In India only 2.2% of the total produce is processed as compared to 40 to 83% in developed countries.