• Banana fruits are available in plenty in the Tropical countries like India, and a sizeable quantity of this fruit is wasted due to poor transportation and storage facilities.
• Therefore processing and product development using bananas is of utmost importance. Various processed products like figs, clarified juice, banana powder, flour, starch, jam, chips, stem candy and fermented products like ethanol, brandy and beer are prepared and used commonly in India.

Banana Figs

• Drying of ripe banana in sun or by mechanical methods has yielded palatable, soft and non-sticky product called banana figs, which can be stored for some months, in cardboard cartons lined with polythene.
• Gros Michel, High Gate, Robusta, Harichal, Red banana, Kunnan and Nakitechi, Pachakadali and Thenkunnan varieties are suitable for the preparation of banana figs.
• The following procedure is generally followed for the preparation of banana figs.
• Take 5 kg of bananas, 1/2 tea spoon sodium bicarbonate, 2 litres of water, and 5 g of sulphur in a china dish.
• Select any variety of ripe banana, remove the peels and cut into slices with a stainless-steel knife. Immerse in sodium bicarbonate solution.
• Place on wooden slat trays or trays made of bamboo stick. Sulphur them for one hour by placing the trays in a sulphuring box having a dish containing sulphur.
• Dry them in the sun everyday, turning the sides till they are well dried. Home drier can also be used at 55⁰ - 60⁰ C for 20 hours. Store them in air-tight tins.

• Banana can be dehydrated by osmosis in sugar syrup at 70 per cent concentration.
• The fruit will be reduced to about 50 per cent of its original weight by the process of osmosis, after which it is drained, washed and vaccuum dried which gives best product.
• Flavour, colour, appearance and texture attributes are maximally retained in osmotically dried products.
• The dehydrated products can be preserved upto one year or more, depending upon the packaging material used and storage condition.

Starch

• A process for the manufacture of starch from banana pseudostem has been evolved.
• The paste was somewhat longer than that of corn starch, but appreciably shorter than tapioca starch paste. Gelled banana starch was nearly as strong as corn starch and was nearly as opaque and reflective.
• Banana and corn starch might compete for the same market, their success being affected by transport costs.

Preparation of Banana Powder

• Raw bananas should be allowed to ripe in the Laboratory in an incubator at 18⁰ - 20⁰ C and a RH of 68-75% till the fruit becomes soft.
• The fruits are then peeled and pulp was then cut into small pieces with a stainless steel knife. The macerated pulp is then dried at 60⁰ C under 58 cm of vaccuum. After 9 hours the dried product is pulverised and passed through a 50 mesh sieve and the powder is stored in air tight polythene bags in air tight containers.
• Spray drying of banana pulp yielded banana powder which is a hygroscopic material needing special care for preventing infection.
• Banana powders were found to contain many of the nutrients that were normally required for the general well being of the body.

• An enzymic method has been developed by some to obtain clear and sparkling juice from banana pulp having the taste and flavour of original fruit.
• The juice so obtained can be bottled under suitable conditions. It can also be concentrated into an amber coloured product with honey consistency which can be used for the preparation of banana juice drink.
• Ripe banana fruits of Cavendish variety should be washed, peeled and the flesh was pulped in waring blenders.
• The pulp should be heated to 65° - 75° C for inactivating. This pulp should be cooled at 40° C, Calculated quantity of pectic enzyme concentrate (PEC) should be added to the pulp, mixed thoroughly and should be allowed to stand for sometime.
• When Cavendish variety of banana is used as raw material-agitation of the pulp for one hour after the addition of enzyme was found to be beneficial for processing.
• The enzyme dosage of 0.75 - 1 per cent (V/W of pulp) was found to be optimal.
• Preheating of the pulp and addtion of a preservative potassium metabisulphite (KMS) was found to be good for obtaining a quality clarified juice as product.

Effect of Pre heating the Pulp on the characteristic of banana Juice

• The fruit is dried to a limited extent in the tropics in dryers of various types. Green fruit is peeled after loosening the skin by blanching.
• The peeled fruit is sulphured for a short time, dried on trays until brittle, ground and milled into banana flour.

Banana chips

• Banana chips is one of the processed products of banana which can be produced easily and if proper packaging is provided will store well for months together.
• In Kerala State, the Nendran(AAB) plantain banana are made use of for the preparation of chips. As there is steady, and ready market for the product all throughout the year, both within and outside the state, Nendran banana chips are produced throughout the year, subject to the availability of raw unripe fruits.
• The general procedure for the preparation of deep-fat fried banana chips are the following.
• The fully mature, unripe, good sized 'Nendran' banana fruits are harvested. The fresh fingers are separated from hands, washed and drained off to remove any dust on the peel.
• Then the fingers are hand peeled by stainless steel knives and sliced into 1.75 to 2.0 mm thick slices by an adjustable stainless steel hand slicer.
• Chipping oil in the frying pan at 160⁰ - 170⁰ C when the oil reaches the smoke point.
• The frying medium: material ratio should be somewhere around 4:1. Common salt at the rate of 0.6 per cent (W/W added as 20 per cent aqueous solution) is sprinkled over the frying chips in the pan towards the end of frying. The fried chips are removed from the frying pan drained off the oil and immediately packed in air tight tin containers.
• Nendran bananas harvested between 85 and 95 days after the emergence of inflorescence are most suitable for deep-fat frying into chips.