Drying characteristics of wild apricot (Prunus armeniaca) fruit bar and economic evaluation of market potential of the enterprise

Abstract

 An experiment was conducted to study the drying characteristics of wild apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) fruit bar and evaluation of the economic feasibility of the enterprise. Wild apricot fruits were harvested at optimum maturity from Distt Tehri-Garhwal, Uttarakhand and after thorough sorting and proper washing, used for hot extraction of pulp through a
pulper. Pulp was preserved in 500 ppm SO₂. Wild apricot fruit bar was prepared by pre-standardized recipe using wild
apricot pulp + 60 % sugar + 0.30 % pectin and drying the mixture in a mechanical dehydrator at 55 ± 2^oC for 6 hours.
Dried fruit bar sheets were cut into rectangular shapes (1.0×1.5 in²) using a stainless steel knife and wrapped in polythene paper. Results on the drying rate indicate that for preparation of fruit bar we can dry the mixture of pulp, sugar and pectin within six hours in a mechanical dehydrator after boiling for 20 min over the flame. It was also observed that most of the moisture loss occurs during the process of heating / boiling over the flame and the product stabilizes and sets into a bar during mechanical dehydration with only small percentage of moisture loss. The mass balance thus indicates that about 9.11 kg of wild apricot fruit bar is obtained from 10 kg of pulp. The economic indicators such as B/C (3.55), PBP (1.68 years), IRR (55.4%) revealed the sound financial position of wild apricot fruit bar production unit and hence existing (fruit processing unit) as well as potential entrepreneurs in various hill states of India including Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir etc. can enter into this venture.