|
 Sweet
Potato Puree Adds to Bottom Line
News Release courtesy of ARS the USDA's chief scientific
research agency.Scientists
and researchers are always looking for ways to improve the
nation's food supply, market to American's taste and make
farming more profitable. A new shelf-stable sweet potato
puree which has all the antioxidant and nutritional benefits
of the sweet potato and can be used as a sweetener in products
that do not have to be refrigerated is their newest creation.
Not only will this ingredient give
consumers a new nutrition boost, it will boost the farmers'
bottom line. Instead of discarding sweet potatoes of the
wrong size or shape, they can use them in this new process.
By
Rosalie Marion Bliss
March 26, 2008
Batches of a nutritious, shelf-stable sweet potato puree to
be used as a food ingredient are being rolled out today at a
new sweet potato processing facility owned by Yamco LLC in
Snow Hill, NC. The premium food ingredient is now commercially
available to manufacturers for use in a variety of finished
products such as baked goods, soups, baby foods, beverages and
nutraceuticals.
This new, high-quality food ingredient is made possible by
a unique, rapid-microwave-heating process. The process was
developed, tested and jointly patented by collaborators with
North Carolina State University (NC
State) in Raleigh, the Agricultural Research
Service (ARS)
on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
and Industrial Microwave Systems, L.L.C. (IMS),
Morrisville, NC.
Food scientist
Van-Den Truong, with the Raleigh-based
ARS Food Science Research Unit, and his
collaborators tested the product extensively at an NC State
pilot plant. The collaborators include NC State food engineers
Josip Simunovic, Kenneth Swartzel, K. P. Sandeep and Gary
Cartwright and graduate student Pablo Coronel. Their testing
ensured that the puree exhibits ideal nutrient and color
retention with little flavor loss under sterile processing
conditions. The result is a value-added food ingredient that
is shelf-stable at room temperature.
The patented process was licensed in 2007 to Yamco LLC for
exclusive commercial production of sweet potato puree.
For farmers, the new process provides a new market for
less-than-perfect sizes or shapes of sweet potatoes that might
ordinarily be discarded. That's because all sweet potato sizes
and shapes can be used to make the new, shelf-stable puree.
North Carolina farmers produce more sweet potatoes than
growers in any other state, accounting for 43 percent of the
annual $290 million U.S. sweet potato crop in 2006.
Sweet potatoes are often called a "nutritional powerhouse"
because they are very high in beta carotene. They also contain
phenolic compounds, vitamin C, vitamin B6, dietary fiber and
potassium, among other nutrients.
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