Study On Application Of HACCP In Strawberry Juice Processing

Strawberry (Fragaia ananassa Duchesne) is one of the species of Rosaceae in herbaceous plants, which is also called Fragaria vesca, hor-tensis, pineapple strawberry or garden strawberry and so on. It is a kind of berry tree. Strawberry has the functions of clearing summer-heat, encouraging production of body fluids, clearing lung and eliminating phlegm, and invigorating spleen and stomach, et al. Its fruit is juicy and luscious with peculiar sour-sweet flavor, and therefore enjoyed the name of "Fruit Queen". However, its poor storability and high vulnerability to injury and infestation due to the lack of hard skin protection may lead to rot, thus the commodity value was loss of. With large amount of nutrients reserved, the processed strawberry juice, almost having the same nutritive value as the fresh strawberry fruit, having a good market prospect for its bright color and nice sour-sweet taste. Therefore, it is of great significance to application the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) in the producing of strawberry juice to improve its quality.In this paper, the application of HACCP in strawberry juice production was studied. After application of the HACCP system for strawberry juice processing, tracing research was made to evaluate the validity and consistency of the system to control critical hazards. Based on the experiments and the associated codex of fruit and vegetable juice, hazard analysis for strawberry juice production was conducted. The main hazards in strawberry juice production were residue of pesticide, microorganism and metal residue. The critical control points were identified as the following:1) CCP1:the acceptance of raw materials--to control the chemical hazards of pesticide residue and excessive heavy metals, 2) CCP2:pasteurization to reduce the hazards of prokaryotic microorganism like pathogenic bacteria. Aiming at the 2 critical control points above, particular critical limits were made. The food and raw materials should be obtained from non-polluted vegetables production areas. The critical limits of pasteurization are:temperature>90℃and flow rate < 4200 L/h.Study had been made to compare the safety of products before and after the application of HACCP system. Results showed that the production of strawberry juice accords with the requirements of non-polluted vegetables production areas and that the food-borne microorganisms were lower and the products were improved after the application of HACCP system. The results suggested that HACCP was an effective method to improve the safety of the strawberry juice.