CHEMICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL STUDIES ON SOME FOODS

Abstract

Orange (Citrus sinensis) is a classical source of ascorbic acid. It's the main citrus fruit in Egypt and allover the world (Ashurst, 1995). The area cultivated with citrus fruits in Egypt reached 334058 feddan in 1999 which yielded 2465813 tons with an average of 7.38 tons/feddan (Ministry of Agriculture annual statistical book, 2000). Same publisher stated that orange is a main export fruit. The exported quantities were 203000 tons in 94/95 season and 225000 tons in 98/99 season adding 203 and 260 million Egyptian pound to the national income, respectively. In the last year, many changes have occurred in the fruit juice and beverage markets. Unless -aseptic packaging is used, the production of such non-carbonated products is a relatively high risk venture with microbial spoilage controlled largely by chemical preservatives. Hence, the development of aseptic packages, the machinery to handle them and the process plant to deliver the product in a suitably pasteurized form with minimal heat damage is a most important part of the growth of the market. Production of pasteurized juice (especially orange juice) has developed considerably, about 15% of the production was processed to orange juice. Significant part of the orange juice produced in Egypt goes for export especially to European Economic community (E.E.C). However, Egypt is not the only producer of orange juice. Latel y, it has encountered extreme competition in foreign markets from other countries, especially with Spain joining the E.E.C. (Ensaf, 1996)