The Preparation of Jam: Using Star Fruit

Fruits are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that help with the body’s maintenance and development. During fruit-bearing season, the fruits are in abundance and due to their high perishability, they sometimes get spoilt and rot before they are consumed. To extend the shelf life they can be used to produce jam. Chopped or crushed fruits can be used to make jam by adding sugar to make a mixture which is then round up when placed on a spoon. The objectives of the study were to find out if star fruit can be used to produce jam, assess the taste, aroma, flavor, color, appearance and aftertaste of the star fruit jam, examine if the star fruit jam will be accepted by customers, evaluate if customers can be encouraged to patronize the jam. The star fruit jam was produced at the Hospitality Management Department at Takoradi Polytechnic and a sensory analysis was conducted to analyze the color, aroma, flavor, texture, taste, after taste and its overall acceptance. A questionnaire was used to solicit information from 98 respondents which comprised of students, lecturers and non-teaching staff. The sample was obtained using convenience sampling technique. The findings revealed that the production of star fruit jam was possible and was accepted by the respondents as they indicated that the sensory attributes that is, (the color, taste, aroma, flavor, texture, after-taste and overall acceptability) of the pineapple, star fruits and the pineapple and star fruit jams were generally very good.