Turning Pineapple Crown Waste Into Value: Formulation and Analysis of an Instant Powder Beverage

Pineapple processing generates significant waste, with the crowns accounting for 28%. The crowns are rich in nutrients and phytochemicals and offer potential for high value-added bioactive products such as herbal infusion. Therefore, this work aims to develop and characterize a microencapsulated bioactive beverage powder from pineapple crown infusion. The crowns were dried, ground, and added to water (90°C; 10 min) to obtain the infusion. The microcapsules were obtained by adding maltodextrin to the infusion and drying by freeze-drying (FD) or spray-drying (SD). Physicochemical parameters, morphology, encapsulation efficiency (EE), total reducing capacity (TRC), antioxidant capacity (AC), and phenolic compound content (HPLC-DAD) were determined. The microcapsules had an average size of 12-166 μm and similar pH (~4.3), Aw (< 0.40) and moisture content (~3.5%). The microcapsules were highly soluble (99.98%) with wettability 1 (FD) at 191 s (SD). The sorption isotherms were of the J type. FTIR revealed similar bands between the two samples, with characteristic bonds of hydroxyl groups, carboxylic acids, alcohols, and aromatic rings. SD showed higher TRC but similar AC to the FD samples. The EE for both drying techniques was ~98%. Core extracts showed greater antioxidant capacity than surface extracts. Three hydroxycinnamic acids (p-coumaric, <i>trans</i>-ferulic, and caffeic acid) were identified. The reconstituted beverage (SD) showed a higher content of phenolic acids than the infusion PCF and FD microcapsules, with p-coumaric acid being the most abundant. The pineapple crown soluble powder drink has promising industrial characteristics and proposes using a part of the fruit discarded in conventional production practices.