Sustainable food processing of selected North American native berries to support agroforestry

Chokeberries, elderberries, blueberries, and blackberries are highly nutritious native fruits in the US Midwest region. Their high moisture content, delicate structure easily leads to fruit loss/waste. This review focuses on different drying methods for whole fruits and juices to preserve their quality and improve their shelf life. Solar drying, hot-air drying, spray drying, freeze-drying, vacuum-drying, electromagnetic drying, and osmotic dehydration are the commonly used dehydrating methods for berries. Berries are photo, heat-sensitive, and rich source of essential nutrients. Texture, flavor, color, water content, phytonutrients, physicochemical properties can be influenced by dryer and processing parameter selection. Drying is a complex dynamic process, due to structural differences among various foods, combined thermal and non-thermal techniques could improve fruit quality. Hence, knowledge of drying behavior and degradation kinetics is vital for optimizing the process parameters to enhance the fruit quality. Freeze drying and spray drying showed better preservation of nutrients. Existing research suggests that chokeberries (Aronia) are underutilized compared to blueberries and blackberries. Aronia fruit has a lot of potentials containing health-promoting compounds and is yet to be explored. Future research suggestions have been put forward for the efficient use of drying techniques and to improve the fruit quality.