There are many blackberry cultivars in Brazil; however, the characteristics and applications of the Cherokee cultivar have not yet been widely studied. For this reason, this research investigated the behaviour of maltodextrin (MD), gum Arabic (GA), and pectin (PEC), as carriers combined in different proportions (20% MD, 15% MD + 5% GA, 15% MD + 5% PEC), on encapsulation of Cherokee blackberry pulp extract obtained by freeze-drying. The results of moisture content (2.73-3.36%), water activity (aw) (0.11-0.15), solubility (52.40-54.11%), hygroscopicity (17.59-21.11%), colour (hue 0.24-0.32), retention of anthocyanins (51.55-60.53%), total phenolic compounds (39.72-70.73 mg GAE/100g), antioxidant activity at 25 mg/mL (77.89-80.02%), IC50 (12.26-14.53), simulated in vitro digestion and morphology were discussed. Concerning morphology, blackberry powders had irregular structures and amorphous structures. Comparatively, the best results were obtained for MD-GA. MD-GA presented the highest content of phenolic compounds (70.73 ± 1.84 mg GAE/100g) and antioxidant activity (80.02%), as well as the lowest IC50 value (12.26). In general, all powders showed an increase in phenolic compounds during in vitro digestion, because of the pH conditions and digestive enzymes present in the simulated digestive fluid. This result shows that the wall material provides protection, since the blackberry rich extract (RE) showed degradation of phenolic compounds in in vitro digestion. In this sense, freeze-drying is a suitable technique for the encapsulation of Cherokee blackberry pulp extract.
Keywords: Phenolics; anthocyanins; antioxidants; digestion; encapsulation.