Evaluations potencial use of the cambuci - Campomanesia phaea (O. Berg.) Landrum for utilization in the agro-industrial

• Grant number: 14/07338-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: October 01, 2014 - September 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Forestry Resources and Forestry Engineering - Technology and Use of Forest Products
• Principal Investigator: Marta Helena Fillet Spoto
• Grantee: Marta Helena Fillet Spoto
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Marcia Ortiz Mayo Marques ; Roselaine Facanali

Abstract

There are great efforts in Brazil to identify, select and use the plant products derived from the rich native flora of the country, such as fruit pulps, essential oils, extracts, resins, and others. These products have great potential for market application due to their active ingredients, which are often unknown and used inefficiently without observing the modern concepts of sustainable production. These ingredients may have important nutritional, medicinal, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic properties, among others, offering healthy alternative diets rendering human welfare as well as social, environmental, and economic impacts that can positively influence a business chain still little explored in Brazil, but with great potential to grow. On the other hand, research and development of these plant products typically Brazilian, especially the indigenous fruits, can add significant value to the industrialized commercial derivatives. In-depth studies on these fruiting species are still incipient and therefore considered quite timely. The proposed project includes the mapping and the study of the production chain of a species that occurs typically and restricted in the areas of the Atlantic forest: the cambuci (Campomanesia phaea). It also aims to characterize the fruit pulp for its physical, chemical, nutritional, microbiological aspects, volatile and sensory compounds, when subjected to different types of agro-industrial processing. Thus, the proposed work is of utmost importance, as it can contribute to the implementation of this emblematic Brazilian fruit into the food, beverages and pharmaceutical-cosmetics industries. (AU)