Optimizing the juice formulation for a pomegranate based functional beverageusing D-optimal mixture design of response surface methodology

Mixed beverages are prepared by the addition of two or more juices having a pleasant taste and dominant flavor. The optimization of level of pomegranate juice with lime and ginger juice for development of functional beverages was performed using D-optimal mixture design of response surface methodology. The levels of three independent factors were considered as pomegranate juice (70-85%), lime juice (10-20%) and ginger juice (5-10%). The different responses were considered for experiment as physicochemical (color value, total anthocyanin, total phenolics, antioxidant activity, ascorbic acid) and sensory (hedonic score and overall acceptability) properties. The optimization was applied to the selected range of the variables and responses. The selected optimized solution with maximum desirability (0.977) for independent factors were prepared and further evaluated for validating predicted values. Based on the validation experiments, functional beverage containing 85% pomegranate juice, 10% lime juice and 05% ginger juice was found acceptable which provides total phenolics (236.2 mg/L GAE), anthocyanin (4.61 mg/100 mL AAE), ascorbic acid (1.80 mg/100 g); and having antioxidant activity (7.54 mg/100 mL) on wet basis. When the developed RTS compared nutritionally and organoleptically with RTS drink from pomegranate juice (control) showed 40% increase in antioxidant activity, 20% increase in ascorbic acid, 5% decrease in calorific value and higher hedonic score as well as score for overall acceptability. Furthermore, this blended RTS drink could be safe to consume or stored for the period of 90 days at low temperature (5oC).