Secondary raw materials of agricultural processing companies as a source of anthocyanin colorants

Abstract

Many recent researches in vitro and in vivo proved the large therapeutic potency of non-toxic anthocyans in anti-inflammatory, anti-infective, anti-oxidative actions. Anthocyanin is a natural phenolic colorant approved in many countries. A reason why the world market of natural food colorants is reduced is because fruit and berry raw materials are expensive. Yet the fruit and berry raw materials are extracted with significant losses and by-products. This constitutes around 23-45% of the whole amount of berries processes in the Russian Federation. Thus, a priority direction of the food industry is a development of technologies allowing to use precious berry pomace with high bioactive compounds, i.e. anthocyans, organic acids, pectin. The aim of the research is to extract food colorant from the pomace of Vaccínium myrtíllus and Vaccínium vítis-idaéa to identify individual anthocyanin pigments. The food safety and composition of the pomace of Vaccinium myrtillus and Vaccinium vitis-idaea as raw material for food colorant extraction were found. Individual anthocyanin pigments of anthocyanin extracts were identified through the method of high-performance liquid chromatography. Cyanidin-3-galactoside was found in the extracts of berries (85,6 %) and pomaces (81,2%) of Vaccinium vitis-idaea. Fifteen compounds were identified in the extracts of Vaccinium myrtillus. The major ones were delphinidin-3-glucoside (13,4 %), delphinidin-3-galactoside (12,4 %), and cyanidin-3-glucoside for the fresh berries. As for the pigments of its pomaces, they were delphinidin-3-glucoside (15,3 %), delphinidin-3-galactoside (14,7 %), and delphinidin-3-arabinoside (10,5 %). Hence, there are more anthocyanin pigments in the extracts of pomaces, than in those of the fresh berries with identical compounds – 24,7 % more for Vaccinium myrtillus and 11,1 % more for Vaccinium myrtillus. The possibility to extract anthocyanin pigments from by-products of the local fruit and berry raw materials – i.e. of Vaccinium myrtillus and Vaccinium vitis-idae ones – and identify them is discussed.