Abstract:
Protein deficiency has become a major challenge worldwide with the fast growing world population,
thus, it is important to explore novel alternative methodologies to produce protein to meet the
nutritional demand. In this backdrop, locally available pineapple, sour orange and sour mango peel
wastes were studied for their suitability to produce single cell proteins using natural palmyrah
(Borassusflabellifer) toddy yeast under liquid state fermentation system. Pineapple, sour orange and
sour mango peel were collected, cleaned, washed and blended separately and their physicochemical properties such as total soluble solid (TSS), pH, reducing sugar, moisture content, protein,
fat and ash content were determined. The extract of fruit peels were filtered and diluted to 10% and
autoclaved separately. The sterilized peel extracts were inoculated with 5 mL natural palmyrah
toddy yeast ((1.625±0.15) × 106
cells/mL) and allowed for fermentation at 100 rpm for 48 h. The
sediments were collected by centrifugation, oven dried and the dry weight was measured to
determine the protein content. The biomass yield ranged from 8.61-9.40 g/L with the least biomass
yield was observed with sour mango while the maximum yield was observed with pineapple.
Pineapple peel generates significantly higher amount of protein (49.7± 1.3%) followed by the sour
orange and sour mango peel (29.5 ± 1.2% and 24.6 ± 0.2% respectively). It is concluded thatnatural
and locally available pineapple peel waste are good substrate for the production of protein-rich cell
biomass using fermentation by natural toddy yeast of palmyrah.
