Artocarpus Heterophyllus Lam (Jackfruit) Processing Equipment: Research Insights and Perspectives

Abstract

India is the largest producer of jackfruit (Artocarpus Heterophyllus Lam.) all over theworld. It is an underutilized seasonal fruit rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and car-bohydrates. A significant chunk of the jackfruit production is wasted due to a lack ofpostharvest technological interventions. Due to its bulky nature, thickness, and spikyskin, operations like peeling, cutting, and coring are difficult to perform manually.Recently, there is a considerable improvement in the mechanization of jackfruit post-harvest processing, which helps to reduce the wastage by 80% in its production andutilization. This review summarizes the recently developed varied types of machinery,procedures, and working mechanism of various postharvest operations such as peel-ing, cutting, coring, bulb removal, and seed processing. Moreover, it critically evalu-ates and compares the machinery for each stage of unit operation involved injackfruit processing. The development of various thermal processing techniques suchas blanching, canning, boiling, and drying is also discussed in detail. However, oncomparing thermal processing with other processing aids, there is always a criticalnutrients loss during thermal processing. This review also finally explores the jackfruitpotential for industrial application and commercialization.