Optimisation of Anthocyanin Co-pigmentation from Butterfly Pea (Clitoria ternatea) Flower and its Application in Gummy

In contrast to natural food colours, food manufacturers have increasingly used synthetic food colours to achieve attributes such as low cost, excellent appearance, high colour intensity, increased colour stability, and consistency. Furthermore, natural colourants such as anthocyanins have been linked to potential health advantages such as dietary antioxidants. Pea Flower (Clitoria ternatea) was utilized in this research because the high quantity of polyacylated anthocyanins known as ternatins in blue pea flowers which is a distinctive property of anthocyanins found in blue pea flowers. The purpose of this research is to improve anthocyanin thermal stability via co-pigmentation process from Butterfly Pea flower and to analyse the physicochemical features of gummy. The potential of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) for optimising anthocyanin co-pigmentation from Butterfly Pea (Clitoria ternatea) flower was investigated in this study. The effect of two test variables on the half-life of anthocyanin was studied in a specific range of pH 3-6 and anthocyanin to metal ratio (1:1 to 1:100). The data from the experiment were analysed using the RSM of MINITAB Software (Version 19), and the optimum half-life of anthocyanin of 191 minutes was established and verified. The optimal conditions were stated to be pH 3.75 and an anthocyanin:metal ratio of 1:75. A significant regression equation or model with a correlation value of 95.38% was also achieved at the 5% level. For the application of gummy, three types of gummies (synthetic blue incorporated gummy (F1), anthocyanin incorporated gummy (F2) and co-pigmented anthocyanin incorporated gummy (F3)) were produced to analyse its physicochemical qualities. The physicochemical qualities of F3 gummy were reported to retain the physicochemical since the pH values, water activity, moisture content, and textural properties were not significantly different (p>0.05). However, due to the % difference in polymeric colour present, the colour in terms of hue angle was noted to have a significant difference between F1, F2, and F3.