Development of functional foods: Consumer acceptance of resveratrol-loaded crackers and cookies

Micro-nano encapsulation can be impactful in flavour masking of bioactives, and it has the potential to be used in the development of functional food ingredients.

This work aimed to develop functional foods using emulsified resveratrol, assessing the impact of resveratrol addition and its consumer acceptance. Resveratrol-loaded emulsions were produced through high-speed homogenization/ultrasonication. Functional snacks (crackers and cookies) loading 4 mg resveratrol/g were developed using resveratrol-loaded emulsions and free resveratrol. Results showed that the incorporation of emulsified resveratrol in the dough led to an increase in its elasticity and a decrease in its consistency. Slight color differences were noticed between non-encapsulated resveratrol and reference samples. The texture of baked crackers and cookies showed a decrease in hardness for the emulsified cookies and an increase in the crackers.

Sensory analysis was conducted with over one-hundred volunteers. For both products, the reference sample was the highest-rated sample in overall liking, followed by the emulsion-loaded sample and the unencapsulated resveratrol-loaded sample. Unencapsulated resveratrol-loaded and emulsion-loaded samples displayed an increase in bitterness when compared to the reference. The sensory analysis revealed a slight positive impact of the encapsulation of resveratrol versus the unencapsulated resveratrol. Nonetheless, further progress needs to be achieved to reduce resveratrol's impact.