Turn mango by-products into delicious vinegar thanks to reflux fermentation

Producing vinegar from crumbled mango meat by the back-fermentation method has just produced safe vinegar products from nature and contributed to reducing waste in the process of processing mangoes.

The product is the result of the project "Researching and developing technological processes to produce vinegar from mango by-products by reflux fermentation method" by scientists at the Institute of Agricultural Mechatronics and Post-Harvest Technology. HCMC implemented. The project was accepted by the Department of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Minh City in 2019.

Vietnam's mango products are currently exported to 40 countries around the world.

Head of the topic, MSc. Le Thi My Phuong said that the current trend of consumers is very much interested in imported fruit vinegar from abroad with high price. However, in Vietnam, the fermentation of vinegar is mainly handmade from rice wine, of low quality. Although industrially produced vinegar has a high content of acetic acid, it still does not meet the requirements of consumers, due to the harsh taste. 

Meanwhile, Vietnam is one of the potential mango-producing countries of the world. In addition to eating fresh, mangoes are also purchased or processed for export or domestic consumption by companies. In the process of processing frozen mango for export or dried mango, companies only use the cheeks of the mango, the remaining trim is huge. This is considered a byproduct of mango and because there is no treatment, it is often abandoned, causing waste and environmental pollution.  

In the processing of flexible dried mango using only the mango pulp, the mango trimmings can account for up to 30% of the mango meat.

From these discarded byproducts, the team built a vinegar production process using reflux fermentation.

The production of vinegar from the by-product of mangoes includes such steps as pureing, heating, enzymatic hydrolysis, centrifugal filtration, mixing, pasteurizing mango juice, fermenting wine, vinegar fermentation, aging, filtering, closing. bottle. During the production process, the group used strains of bacteria Acetobacteria pasteurianus to ferment, through reflux fermentation system with reflux rate of 2 volumes / minute and fermentation time of 10 days, produce mango vinegar products. bright yellow, total acid content (acetic acid) reaches> 5%. Mango vinegar processed from this technological process has a stable quality after 4 weeks of aging.

Surveyed mango vinegar products showed stable quality in terms of dissolved solid content, acid content in 6 months (from the date of bottling), in terms of product color after 6 months of storage. be accepted by consumers.

The mango vinegar product of the research team.

Vinegar products use domestic raw materials, simple techniques, machinery and equipment manufactured by the country, so the investment cost is not too high. With the total initial equipment investment cost of nearly VND 800 million, the production scale of 50 liters / day, the enterprise can recover capital after more than 2 years.

"This technology can be transferred to fruit and fruit processing enterprises in order to increase the competitiveness of quality and price compared to the same products of the world, improve the demand for self-made products. However, replacing imported products' , Ms. Phuong added.

Currently, the research team is willing to transfer this technology to small production facilities or in cooperatives and farmer households who have local raw materials, contributing to raising incomes for farmers. At the same time, the group also wants to cooperate on a large scale to lower production costs, improve production efficiency, enhance the commercial value of Vietnamese mangoes.