It is with great pleasure and a sense of fulfilment to state that we have successfully brought out three volumes of our journal “International Journal of Food and Fermentation Technology” during 2011 and 2012, catering to the needs of food scientists, R and D workers, and the academician in the field. The inaugural issue of the journal was released by the honourable Vice-chancellor of Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (India) Dr K. R. Dhiman on 26th June 2012 in a function held in the University to mark the beginning of the ICAR sponsored training on ‘’Advance in Fruit and Vegetable Processing and Preservation” with me as a Course Director.

For the last few decades, the scientific community has been in frenzy and as a food biotechnologist I dare say its becoming impossible not to get pulled into the beautiful world of designing and development of functional foods which is getting creative and innovative with each passing day. New functional food ingredients are being discovered every day and consumer demand for ‘food with a healthy function’ is a growing trend. While the novel foods are absolutely unresistable with its color, texture, aroma, let’s not ignore the potential of traditional foods which have a long history of safe use and consumer acceptability.

Xylanase is the enzyme that degrades xylan, causes decreasing in degree of polymerization, hence releasing oligomers such as xylobiose and xylose. Compared to the plants and animals, fungi are the most preferable microorganisms for this purpose due to their growth conditions and structural sturdiness. Xylanase is produced by several microorganisms such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Trichoderma, Streptomyces and Bacillus spp. Nonetheless, Aspergillus is identified as the major producer of xylanase. Xylan is commonly used as a substrate for determining the xylanase activity. Due to the potential applications of xylanase in the industries and environment, it is essential to minimize the cost of production by optimising medium formulation and culture conditions of microorganisms in submerged fermentation. Its high demand worldwide, requires optimization of microbial xylanase production by specific carbon and nitrogen sources with optimum growth conditions, both are apparently managed to reduce production cost besides providing adequate amounts of nutrients for biomass and xylanase production, respectively. Xylanase has become valuable and attractive enzyme due to its vast applications in pulp and paper, food and beverage, detergent and textiles industry. All these aspects have been reviewed in this article.

Bacteriocins as antimicrobial metabolites from lactic acid bacteria has potential to find application as a biopreservative agent both in processed as well as fresh food. The present investigation was performed to elucidate the antifungal activity of bacteriocins of Lactobacillus plantarum MTCC 9503 against two common food spoilage fungi, Aspergillus awamori and Penicillium citrinum. Bacteriocins were purified to contain 1,00,000 AU/g of food grade adsorbing agent Diatomite calcium silicate (Micro-Cel). Antifungal efficacy was determined by observing fungal growth, spore viability and spore germination in presence of 2000 AU/ml of bacteriocin preparation. A decrease of 46% (A awamori) and 34% (P citrinum) of fungal mat, on dry weight basis was observed over the control after 10 days of incubation. Spore viability of P citrinum decreased by 20.3% and that of A awamori by 24.2% after 30h of incubation. Control runs recorded 44% spore germination compared to 29.7% (P citrinum) and 27.6% (A awamori) in trial runs after 18h of incubation. Analysis using Sigma-Statistics (One way ANOVA) indicated statistical significance of differences in control and trial results at p< 0.05.

India is the largest producer of fruits in the world with an annual production of 46 million tons, However, accounting to 10% of the world production 20-30% of production get spoiled and remain unutilized as post-harvest losses and mango is no exception. Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is the most popular and the choicest fruit of India. Wine production from mango is a very good alternative to utilize the surplus and value addition. The literature available on mango wine production and characterization, the need of fruit wine and mango wine production and optimization of conditions has been reviewed briefly. The characterization of mango wine in terms of primary metabolite, ethanol and secondary metabolites like glycerol, volatile flavour compounds and phenolic compounds and antioxidant potentiality have also been covered. Cell immobilization in mango wine production, stabilization, other varieties of fermentation products like vermouth and economics has been focussed. To utilize the surplus for wine production, has potential to contribute considerably to postharvest loss reduction and providing value added products.

Traditional Indian cereal based fermented food products like Kurdi(Maharashtra) and Seera(Himachal Pradesh) are prepared from batter of fermented wheat grains. These wheat batters were prepared by soaking wheat grains (TriticumAstivum L., variety: PBN51) in water at different temperatures (30, 37.5 and 45°C) for four days (natural fermentation), crushed, centrifuged and characterized for rheological properties.Prepared wheat batters were characterized for rheological properties like viscosity (Pa.s) vs shear rate (s-1), viscosity (Pa.s) vs shear stress (Pa), loss modulus/ storage modulus/ Tan δ/ complex viscosity vs temperature. It was determined that the viscosity and gelatinization temperature of the wheat batters decreased with increase in the soaking temperature of the wheat grains.

Mandarin oranges are perishable in nature and to utilize surplus the fruit for the preparation of alcoholic wine is a good option. So, the present study was planned to prepare orange wine of acceptable quality. For this, variable initial sugar concentrations were kept. Different content of SO2 were added to the orange must. Physico-chemical and sensory analyse of prepared wines were performed. With increase in initial TSS, the fermentatoin rates decreased. However, no such differences with respet to SO₂ levels were recorded. The physico-chemical characteristics of orange were comparable for other similar wines. The wine with initial TSS 28°C and SO₂ @150 ppm was adjudged to be the best for preparation of mandarine orange wine of acceptable quality.

Effect of removal of reaction substrate (amino acids) from sweet orange juice by using cation exchange resin was studied for reduction of browning of single strength juice and semi-concentrates of 15 and 30 oBrix. Cation exchange resin (CER), Dowex-50W was used for removal of amino acids. The treated and untreated juices were concentrated to 15 and 30oBrix in a rotary vacuum evaporator. Single strength juice alongwith semi-concentrates of 15 and 30 oBrix were stored for a period of one month at refrigerated, ambient and accelerated temperature (37+2oC, 65% RH). During 30 days storage, loss of amino acids was mere 3.07% in the concentrates prepared from cation exchange resin treated juice as compared to about 6.68% loss in the products prepared from untreated juice. Ascorbic acid content showed a net loss of 14.59% (dwb) after 30 days storage in products prepared from untreated juice as compared to far lesser losses of just 4.85% (dwb) in the products prepared from cation exchange resin treated juice under similar conditions of storage. Total sugar registered a net loss of 3.52% on dry weight basis. Treated juice showed higher amount of total sugars with mean value of 75.48% as compared to untreated juices with corresponding value of 71.01%. Cation exchange resin treatment of malta juice resulted into about three folds in non-enzymatic browning during storage.