U.Porto Journal of Engineering (Sep 2022)

Jellyapic

  • David Aguillar,
  • Juliana Magalhães,
  • Marta Sousa,
  • Marta Rêgo,
  • Vasco Ribeiro,
  • Ana Filipa Freitas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-6493_008.005_0013
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 5
pp. 145 – 157

Abstract

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This work consists of developing a strawberry plant-based product, an anti-glycemic gelatin. The selected product is a vegan origin gelatin containing sinapic acid, extracted from the strawberry leaves. A Chemical Product Design (CPD) approach was used to satisfy the customers' needs with a new product. The main purpose of this gelatin is to value the strawberry leaves' wide variety of health properties, mainly its anti-glycemic property. After the definition of the production process, it was concluded that using the total amount of about 133 tons of dry strawberry leaves available per year in Portugal, it was possible to produce up to 26 million gelatin packets yearly. Finally, an economic analysis was performed to evaluate the product viability, resulting in profits from product sales from the third year forward. The net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR) were also calculated, resulting in about 15 million euros and 30 %, respectively.

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