Aditi Negi1,2, Akash Pare3, M Loganathan3, R Meenatchi1. 1. Department of Primary Processing Storage and Handling, IIFPT, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. 2. Bharatidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India, 620023. 3. Department of Academics & Human Resource Development, IIFPT, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) is one of the most important secondary storage pests of all types of flour and flour based products. Present study focus on the fragment producing behaviour of T. castaneum in wheat flour during storage and its effect on the quality parameters and defect action level (DAL) of fragments. The Food Drug Administration (FDA) set DAL of 75 insect fragments in 50 g of flour. Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the storage conditions (storage period in days and temperature in degree Celsius) and insect density (numbers)to keep insect fragments below DAL. RESULTS: Optimization results indicated that presence of single number of adult of T. castaneum is enough to cross the DAL of insect fragments within 21 days of storage period at a storage temperature of 30 °C. Insect fragments cause perceptible changes in the quality of wheat flour. Samples attained DAL of T. castaneum fragments in wheat flour. the following quality parameters were analysed. Moisture content (%) of wheat flour was 10.8±0.26 %, total colour change 2.052 (ΔE value), T. castaneum progeny emergence 19.66±1 numbers, uric acid 1.8±0.16 g kg-1 and microbial count was 7.34± 0.5 cfu g-1 . CONCLUSION: Research results from the present study indicates that presence of even single adult of stored pest in wheat flour should not be ignored. It is mandatory to determine the threshold level and frequent sampling is required to achieve zero tolerance of stored product insects in food commodities. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
BACKGROUND:Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) is one of the most important secondary storage pests of all types of flour and flour based products. Present study focus on the fragment producing behaviour of T. castaneum in wheat flour during storage and its effect on the quality parameters and defect action level (DAL) of fragments. The Food Drug Administration (FDA) set DAL of 75 insect fragments in 50 g of flour. Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the storage conditions (storage period in days and temperature in degree Celsius) and insect density (numbers)to keep insect fragments below DAL. RESULTS: Optimization results indicated that presence of single number of adult of T. castaneum is enough to cross the DAL of insect fragments within 21 days of storage period at a storage temperature of 30 °C. Insect fragments cause perceptible changes in the quality of wheat flour. Samples attained DAL of T. castaneum fragments in wheat flour. the following quality parameters were analysed. Moisture content (%) of wheat flour was 10.8±0.26 %, total colour change 2.052 (ΔE value), T. castaneum progeny emergence 19.66±1 numbers, uric acid 1.8±0.16 g kg-1 and microbial count was 7.34± 0.5 cfu g-1 . CONCLUSION: Research results from the present study indicates that presence of even single adult of stored pest in wheat flour should not be ignored. It is mandatory to determine the threshold level and frequent sampling is required to achieve zero tolerance of stored product insects in food commodities. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Entities:
Keywords:
DAL; T. castaneum; fragments; insect population density; optimization