Banana Drying: A Review on Methods and Advances

ABSTRACTBanana is one of the most important crops produced globally. It contains a wide variety of valuable compounds and has interesting functional properties. Moreover, many by-products and wastes are generated from its collection to its consumption. Bananas are highly perishable due to their high moisture content and an appropriate post-harvest technology and agricultural engineering would prolong its shelf life. Drying is an important and the widely used method of food processing. In addition, drying can also promote the development of value-added products. The quality of dried banana is highly dependent upon the drying method and conditions. Conventionally, bananas are sun- or hot-air-dried. However, these methods are often slow processes and the products obtained have poor quality, so other alternate drying technologies have been developed. This review focuses upon conventional and new drying technologies and pre-treatment methods. The hybrid drying techniques minimize the undesirable effects of drying on banana quality, improve the drying efficiency and provide superior quality products.KEYWORDS: Bananadrying methodspre-treatmenthybrid drying technologiesblanchingvacuum drying Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Author contributionsS. Martínez: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original, Writing – review & editing; J. Carballo: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing; A. J. Román: Investigation, Writing – original draft, A. Boubertakh: Investigation, Writing – original draftAdditional informationFundingThis research received no external funding