Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Proceedings of 14 SLACA - Latin American Symposium on Food Science

Eugenia brasiliensis, commonly known as “grumixama” or Brazilian cherry, is a fruit from the trees of Brazilian forests distributed in the southern and southeastern regions of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. This fruit is used by the local population to produce frozen fruit juice and pulp and has attractive sensory attributes. Despite being a native fruit, its characteristics are not widely known. The sensory quality attributes are crucial for the acceptability of these fruits and their products by consumers. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in grumixama pulp correlated to its sensory
characteristics. The extraction of the compounds was performed by gas chromatography using the solid-phase microextraction method (SPME) using the fiber CAR/PDMS/DVB. VOCs belonging to several chemical classes were identified, the most abundant being terpenes, which have great importance for the sensory characteristics of the fruits. Some of the sesquiterpenes identified were viridiflorene, globulol, spathulenol, caryophyllene, and α-guaiene, this class of compounds is associated with antimicrobial activity, which makes grumixama a fruit of biological value. The monoterpenes 3-thujene and camphene were also identified, which are compounds that participate in forming the aroma of foods. These identified compounds are responsible for giving different sensory characteristics to the fruit. Thus, the results obtained in this study demonstrate the importance of characterizing the volatile organic compounds present in grumixama as they contribute to making this fruit better known, promising for the market, and with attractive characteristics for good acceptance by consumers.