Abstract

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Fruit juices are drinks consumed worldwide as it contain vitamins, minerals, amino acids, dietary fibers, sugars and bioactive compounds which are important for the wellbeing and health of humans. Fresh fruits are minimally processed to obtain juices which render it perishable products and hence the need to preserve these juices. This study was aimed at investigating the biopreservative potential of jackfruit seed and bark on freshly prepared juices (watermelon, pineapple and pawpaw). The colony count was observed during the 96 hours storage period at 0 hour, 48 hours and 96 hours by standard spread plate count method. The samples were screened for total Heterotrophic Bacterial Count (THBC), Total Coliform Count (TCC), Total Lactic Acid Bacteria Count (LAB) and Total Fungal Count (TFC) according to the standard methods for the enumeration of bacteria and fungi. The microbial counts of the juices preserved with jack fruit seeds ranged from 1.0f x 104 to 1.18b x 107 cfu/ml while those preserved with jackfruit bark ranged from 1.3e x 104 to 8.8e x 106 cfu/ml. Jack fruit seeds exerted more biopreservative effects on the pineapple juice, while jackfruit bark had more biopreservative effects on the watermelon juice. The isolated microorganisms included Escherichia coli, Bacillus species, Salmonella species, Staphylococcus aureus, Citrobacter species, Micrococcus species, Lactobacillus species, Rhizopus species, Aspergillus species and Penicillium species. Bacillus sp were the most occurring bacteria in all fruit juices, followed by Staphylococcus aureus and Lactobacillus sp. while the most occurring fungi was Penicillium sp. Some of the microorganisms detected in this study can cause spoilage, food borne illness and pose great risks to human health, so there is need for mitigating the potential risks to consumer health and improving the quality of fruit juices by the addition of natural antimicrobials of plant such as jackfruit to fruit juices which are with little or no negative health consequences. In conclusion, jack fruit seed and bark has been found quite effective as a biopreservative and therefore, could serve as a good candidate for use in extending the shelf life of fruit juices.

Keywords: Fruit juices, biopreservative, jackfruit, microbial count, human health