In a bid to facilitate the custard apple growers, CIPHET has come up with an innovative mechanism, which will help them extract the pulp from the seeds easily On the back of surging demand for custard apple in the country, the Indian fruit growers and food processing companies are finding it difficult to supply the fruit in its pulp form due to lack of the required machineries.
Addressing the issue, the Maharashtra Sitaphal Growers’ Sangh had requested the Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) to come up with a machine that would help them extract custard apple pulp from the seed without crushing the fruit.
Acting on the request, CIPHET has come up with an exclusive mechanism, which will help custard apple or sitaphal growers to extract the finer pulp from the seed for easy processing.
Present scenario
C
.jpg) urrently, the pulp of custard apple is extracted manually by the growers. “The process is time consuming and requires a lot of energy to separate the seed from the pulp. As a result, we are unable to meet the demand in the market on time,” said Navanath Malhari Kaspate, president of Maharashtra Sitaphal Growers’ Sangh, to a FoodProcessing360 correspondent. Status of the machine
CIPHET, at the moment is carrying out test runs of the mechanism that they have developed. According to Dr D M Kadam, senior scientist and in-charge of Institute Technology Management Unit of CIPHET, “The machine has been developed by the students of our institute. It is working well and is able to segregate the seeds from the fruit pulp. We will conduct the tests for a few more days after which we will design a motor-operated machine in a couple of months’ time.”
Demand of sitaphal
Sitaphal has a huge demand in both domestic and international markets. However, while the fruit has short shelf life, its pulp can be preserved for a longer period of time. The pulp of the fruit is used as an ingredient to make ice cream, baby food and fruit shakes, among others and can also be consumed directly. With the machine being developed, not only will sitaphal growers be able to earn more money but it will also ease out many processing related problems of the fruit.
Shalmoli Kundu |
