The Effect of Almond and Spinach By-Product Addition on Physicochemical and Sensory Characteristic of Granola Bar

Abstract

Re.Juve focuses on providing consumers with healthy food and beverages that are pure, fresh, and natural. The need of food products to improve product variety was addressed in this internship project. The internship was conducted from December 1st 2022 until July 31st 2023, and was focused on the development of Granola Bars (GB) as the solution for future Re.Juve products. To add value and uniqueness to the GB developed in Re.Juve, by-products (BP) from almond and spinach pressing were dried and used as a BP flour as part of the ingredient for GB development. In addition to fulfilling the required fiber content, the use of BP also reduced waste production and can be considered part of the circular economy promoted in Re.Juve. The sample was prepared by adding either almond or spinach BP to GB formulation The addition of BP was expected to alter several properties of the GB, the analysis conducted in this project was hardness in texture, moisture content, crude fiber content, and hedonic sensory evaluation. It was found that Spinach Granola Bar (SGB) was significantly lower than control samples in hardness, but significantly higher in moisture analysis, which was inverse of each other. Fiber content result of Control was significantly lower than Almond Granola Bar (AGB), while hedonic analysis showed that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in all parameters except appearance of SGB which was significantly lower than AGB.