CHARACTERISTICS OF EDIBLE CHITOSAN PACKAGING WITH ADDED ELDERBERRY POLLEN

The aim of this study was to characterize properties of edible chitosan packaging with the addition of elderberry pollen. Experimentally produced edible packaging contained 0.075 g; 0.15 g and 0.3 g of elderberry pollen. The results demonstrate the flexibility reduction of the coating from 122.34 ± 10.63% in the control to 90.24 ± 5.08% in the sample with the addition of 0.3 g of pollen. The pollen addition also increased the antioxidant activity the FRAP method it increased from 0.004 µmol Trolox/g in the control to 0.147 µmol Trolox/g in the package with the highest pollen addition, and an increase in values was also observed for the ABTS method. In connection with this, an increase in total polyphenols was also observed. Sensory analysis showed that not a single package was evaluated negatively. Only the aroma affected by the addition of pollen was evaluated as negative. The change in immunoreactivity was not confirmed. The results of measuring the colour characteristics of the image analysis method show that the addition of pollen increases the values of yellowness in relation to the amount of added pollen (7.73 ± 1.28 for control, 25.58 ± 4.72 for the sample with the addition of 0.3 g pollen) (p < 0.05). The addition of pollen also affected the size of the particles and their distance. The largest proportion of particles (11.71%) with a size of 800-1200 µm2 was in the sample with the highest addition of pollen.