Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa cv. Viking) is a rich source of anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are sensitive to processing stresses and environmental factors such as heat, light, and oxygen. Microencapsulation is a process to entrap anthocyanins within coating materials, resulting in enhancement of anthocyanin's stability.
The objectives of this study were to encapsulate aronia extract using different coating materials including maltodextrin, gum Arabic, carboxymethyl cellulose and to evaluate an efficient coating material and physicochemical and sensory properties of sulgidduk added with the microencapsulated aronia.
The encapsulated aronia showed higher encapsulation efficiency, contained higher amount of anthocyanins and phenolics, and had antioxidant activities compared with aronia powder.
When the encapsulated aronia was used as a coloring agent in sulgidduk, sulgidduks added with the encapsulated aronia showed higher total anthocyanin content, total phenolic content, and antioxidant activities(ABTS radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power) than sulgidduk added with aronia powder. Although sulgidduks with the encapsulated aronia showed better preference for color and taste than sulgidduk with aronia powder, there was no difference in overall acceptance. These results indicate that encapsulation of aronia powder enhanced the stability of anthocyanins and can be used as a natural colorant and functional ingredient in food industry.