A study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of different level of citric acid and packaging material on physico chemical quality, sensory quality and shelf life of developed papaya fruit bar .The study revealed that the moisture content (19.06% to 16.95% in PET jars – 19.06% to 17.06% in glass jars), TSS (64.17 to 69.30°Brix in PETjars and 64.17 to 69.46°Brix in glass jars), Vitamin- C (55.30 to 45.80 mg/100mg in PET jars and 55.30 to 46.75 mg/100mg in glass jars) and total plate count decreased with increasing the level of citric acid from 0.5 to 1.0% after 90 days of storage in. During storage there was a reduction in moisture content, pH and vitamin-C, where as TSS (total soluble solids), optical density and total plate count increased during storage. No microbial detection in developed fresh fruit bar was found. The organoleptic score of the bar samples in glass jars at 0.75% citric acid level was found to be higher followed by samples packed in PET jars and the developed fruit bar was well acceptable even after 90 days of storage. The result indicated that sugar50+jaggery50 at 0.75 percent citric acid level gave better products after 90 days of storage followed by sugar50+jaggery50 at 0.5 percent and sugar50+jaggery50 at 1.0 percent.
Effect of different levels of citric acid on quality and storage stability of sugar and jaggery based papaya (Carica papaya L.) fruit bar