Viscoelastic studies of fresh mango puree texturised with gellan gum

Consumption of fresh fruit products increased during the last decade, probably as a consequence of the public awareness regarding the importance of healthy eating habits and consumer's tendency for eating ready-to-eat fresh cut fruits (Olivas G.I., et al. 2005). The objective of this study was to develop a jellified fruit product based on mango puree and gellan gum. The effect of type of gellan (low acyl and high acyl), concentration (1% and 2%) and dissolution temperature (70 °C and 90 °C), on gels setting temperature, was investigated. Gels prepared with mango puree and low acyl gellan have shown higher values of dynamic moduli than those with high acyl gellan. The heating temperature was determinant on the physical properties of the mango puree-gellan: gels produced after heating the mixtures to 90 °C for 1 min have shown higher dynamic moduli and higher gel setting temperature (Tg≈ 65 °C), than those obtained after heating at 70 °C for 1 min (Tg≈ 45 °C). Future work will be focused on the optimisation of the product formulation (e.g. use of low acyl and high acyl in different proportions) and production process, in order to design a fresh fruit product with an improved sensorial acceptance.