A Commercial Method for Recovery of Natural Pigment Granules from Citrus Juices for Color Enhancement Purposes

Abstract

Using differential centrifugation, natural highly colored orange pigment granules were recovered from the juices of single lots of Florida Dancy tangerines harvested in each of 4 years, and orange/red pigment granules from two lots of Murcotts harvested during a single year. Recovery of the concentrated colored matter was about 0.6% by vol. for the tangerine juice; 2.4% for the Murcott juice. Color was significantly enhanced in poorly colored commercial orange juices through addition of relatively small amounts of pigment granules recovered from the tangerine and Murcott juices. Addition of pigment granules to poorly colored orange juices to increase color numbers from 1 to 1.5 points did not significantly affect flavor (P > 0.05) in the resultant products.