Fruit and Vegetable Processing Enzymes

Enzymes are very important for growth and ripening of fruits and vegetables and are active after harvesting and during storage. While most of the enzymes present in plant tissues are important for the maintenance of metabolism, some have also undesirable effects on color, texture, flavor, odor, and nutritional value. Activity of lipoxygenase affects flavor and odor development of some vegetables. Phenol oxidases are important for the discoloration of fruits and vegetables with adverse effects on taste and nutritional quality. The activity of pectinases causes fruit softening. α-amylases degrade starch to shorter polymeric fragments known as dextrins and affect the textural integrity. Fruits and vegetables contain ascorbic acid oxidase, which affects the vitamin availability.

During fruit and vegetable processing, nutritional availability, bioactive compound effectiveness, flavor, color, and texture or cloudiness according to the type of the product are important quality parameters. The inactivation of the quality deteriorative enzymes is very important during fruits and vegetables processing. Main enzymes used in fruit and vegetable processing include pectinesterase, pectinase, protopectinase, hemicellulase, α-amylase, glucoamylase, etc.

Enzymes are also used as processing aids to improve the product quality or to increase the efficiency of operation such as peeling, juicing, clarification, and extraction of value-added products. Enzyme infusion techniques can be used for peeling and segmentation of fruits. Cellulases, amylases, and pectinases facilitate maceration, liquefaction, and clarification during fruit juice processing with the benefit of reducing processing costs and improving yields. The quality of juices manufactured and their stability have been enhanced through the use of enzymes.

Creative Enzymes provides fruit and vegetable processing enzymes. Please find our enzyme products in the list below:

Enzymes have important advantages for industrial application due to stereo- and regioselectivity; low temperature requirement for activity, which means low energy requirement for the process; less by-product formation; improvement of the quality of the product; non-toxic when correctly used; can be degraded biologically and can also be immobilized to reuse; increase stability; and easy separation from the environment.

Except for these enzymes, Creative Enzymes also provides multiple enzyme blends used in various applications. To get more information about these products, please use our Contact Page.