The Hindu Business Line : Preserving coconut water

FAO breakthrough
After five years of research FAO has found a way to keep coconut water stay fresh from 10 days to three weeks under refrigeration.
If the technology works out to be a success commercially, it could change the face of marketing of coconut water in India and other developing nations such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Chennai , Jan. 14

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an arm of the UN, has come up with a simple but significant process for bottling coconut water. The process helps coconut water stay fresh from 10 days to three weeks under refrigeration.

Called cold preservation technology, it is appropriate for small and medium-sized agro-industries that produce bottled coconut water.

This will help meet domestic retail markets and allow export to developed countries, where good quality coconut water is in growing demand.

The process involves filtration to remove particles that might mar the coconut water's appearance, bottling under hygienic conditions and rigorous temperature control. Once coconut is harvested from the tree, the husk has to be trimmed with a sanitised stainless steel cutlass and the water has to be decanted into a sanitised container, where a simple filtering process is done with a cotton cloth.

The filtered water should then be immediately transferred to a cooling tank and cooled to 4°C, or placed in a freezer for three to four hours.

The water must be quickly bottled and sealed — in bottles that have been rinsed in potable water and sanitised for 15 minutes — then stored in a chiller at 4°C, to prevent propagation of bacteria or yeasts.

If the technology works out to be a success commercially, it could change the face of marketing of coconut water in India and other developing nations such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Coconut water is seen as a health drink, particularly to overcome problems relating to body heat and de-hydration.

But its market has all along suffered a handicap as the water's shelf life lasts barely a few hours once decanted from the harvested coconut.

Earlier, attempts to capture the nutritional capabilities in a commercial product made from coconut water have, largely, been unsuccessful.

Once exposed to air, coconut water begins to ferment and rapidly loses most of its nutritional characteristics. To eliminate the risk of bacterial growth, commercial bottlers are forced to sterilise the product using high-temperature/short-time pasteurisation (the same technology used in long-life milk).

But this destroys some of the coconut water's nutrients and almost all of the flavour.

FAO has also developed a mobile freezing unit for street vendors that can keep coconut water fresh for 24 hours.

More Stories on : Coconut & Copra | Storage | Agricultural Institutions | Technology

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