Microencapsulation of black pepper oleoresin

Despite of solvent extracted spice oleoresin having many advantages over ground spices, its sensitivity to light, heat and oxygen is a disadvantage. One approach to overcome this is microencapsulation. The present work reports on microencapsulation of black pepper oleoresin by spray-drying, using gum arabic and modified starch as wall materials. The microcapsules were evaluated for the content and stability of volatiles, non-volatiles, total piperine and entrapped piperine for six weeks. Gum arabic offered greater protection to the pepper oleoresin than modified starch, as seen from the t1/2, time required for a constituent to be reduced to 50% of its initial value.