39D-3

A. O. LUSTRE¹, G. M. Agustin¹, E. V. Edra¹, and A. V. A. Resurreccion². (1) Food Development Center, National Food Authority, FTI Complex, Taguig, Metro Manila, 1631, Philippines, (2) Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement, University of Georgia

JUSTIFICATION: Vitamin A deficiency is a well recognized public health problem in the Philippines and the fortification of widely consumed food products is recommended by the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition. A technology for vitamin A fortification of peanut butter was thus developed to respond to this problem.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study is to improve the nutritional quality of a Philippine commercial brand of peanut butter by developing a suitable technology that would uniformly disperse the fortificant when added to peanut butter.

METHODS: The technology developed consisted of a two-step fortification process that involved preparation of a peanut butter premix containing high levels of vitamin A followed by the addition of the premix to plain peanut butter at a weight ratio adequate to meet regulatory requirements for a fortified food. The fortificant used was vitamin A palmitate. Recovery, dispersion and stability of the fortificant during storage were used as bases for establishing the suitability of the process.

RESULTS: Acceptable results were readily achieved during laboratory scale trials. Under commercial plant conditions however, exposure of the peanut butter to oxygen and light had to be more carefully controlled to achieve the same results. The process established in commercial scale showed acceptable average vitamin A recovery of 91.5% in the premix and 84.6% in the final product and a percent variability of <6% in both premix and final product. Use of the process resulted in fortified peanut butter with an average vitamin A level of 8.55 micrograms retinol/gram of product. This represents 65% of the Recommended Daily Allowance for vitamin A and meets regulatory requirements for 35% to 150% RDA in a food labelled as fortified.

SIGNIFICANCE: Introduction of the fortified product in the local market is expected to alleviate vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines.