Sustainable cultivation and value-addition of green amaranth microgreens through nutritional profiling, packaging, and ready-to-serve beverage formulation

• Green Amaranth microgreens can be sun-grown sustainably and cost-effectively. • High bioactive compounds in contrast to other methods of cultivation. • Packaging affects shelf life; plastic options outperform paper bags. • Plastic clamshells and bags preserve sensory quality during 12-day storage. • Ideal for RTS beverage in a 25:100 ratio with lemon. This study investigates the cultivation of Green Amaranth Microgreens (GAMG) under natural sunlight, a simple, cost-effective, and sustainable method. It also focuses on extending shelf life through various packaging and storage techniques, aiming to make the nutritional benefits of GAMG more widely accessible. Additionally, a Ready-to-Serve (RTS) beverage was also formulated. To test the feasibility of the cultivation method, the nutritional quality of sunlight-grown GAMG was also compared with other cultivation methods. This revealed that the nutritional quality was comparable in most of the parameters and even superior in some. They exhibited a good level of antioxidants (62.26 % GAE), ascorbic acid (51.2±0.12mg/100 g), calcium (52.15±0.03mg/100 g), and iron (1.31±0.01mg/100 g). To address the inherent challenge of shorter shelf life, the study also evaluated the effectiveness of different packaging materials - plastic clamshells, plastic bags, and paper bags under refrigerated conditions at 5 °C through sensory tests for over 12 days. The results demonstrated that plastic clamshells and plastic bags packaging can effectively extend the shelf life of Green Amaranth Microgreens. The sensory analysis of the RTS beverage from GMAG blended with lemon juice in different proportions showed that the formulation of 25:75 (v/v) can be a solution to the shorter shelf life of microgreens.