Nutritional composition and sensory evaluation of jam and juice processed from shea fruit pulp from Uganda

Shea butter tree is a member of the family Sapotacae and is divided into two subspecies: nilotica and paradoxa. However, this research focuses exclusively on Vitellaria paradoxa subsp. paradoxa, which produces fruits elliptically shaped fruits. The fruit is green when mature and changes to a more yellowish colour when fully ripe. Shea fruits are normally consumed in the dry season when other fruits and foods crops are out of season. Development of value added products is expected to increase consumption of these Shea fruits in northern Uganda and with possible outcome of averting food insecurity and malnutrition which is common in this region of Uganda. The focus of this research was therefore to develop more nutritious, safe, convenient and appealing value added products (Jam and juice) from Shea fruit pulp. Value addition is one of the strategic actions to alleviate fruit wastage. Three different formulations of Shea fruit jam, with ratio of fruit pulp to sugar at 50:50, 40:60 and 80:20 percentages and three different formulations of Shea fruit juice 10% fruit juice, 25% fruit juice and 50% fruit juice were developed and evaluated for nutritional composition and consumer acceptability. The results were subjected to paired preference test and the best ratio was used. While sensory evaluations of the jams did not reveal differences between formulations (P>0.05), significant differences were, however, obtained for the juices, with formulation of 25% being preferred. According to consumer preference, jam to sugar ratio 50:50 was preferred as were juice ratios of 25% pulp. Quality, colour, and taste were acceptable. The nutritional composition indicated that Shea juices and jams are rich sources of carbohydrates, energy, vitamin C, proteins and calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc with values of 14.55%, 253.3kj/100g, 13.4mg/100ml,0.177%, 14.09 mg/100g, 5.5mg/100ml, 3.3mg/ 100g, 0.3% for 25% Shea juice and 68.24%, 1176.23kj/100g, 3.8 mg/100ml, 0.95mg/100, 30.343 mg/100g, 6.4mg/100g, 3.0 mg/100g, 0.37mg/100g for Shea jam (50:50) respectively. These results indicate that Shea fruit pulps are very nutritious and have the potential of alleviating malnutrition and food insecurity. Microbiological analyses indicate that good quality jam and juices can be processed using simple procedures suitable for small-scale commercial production including open kettle jam-making process and mechanical juice extraction followed by hot water pasteurization.