Blood fruit (Haematocarpus validus) has important bioactive compounds, antioxidant properties and some essential minerals, which plays an essential part in human nutrition and traditional medicine for treating arthritis, jaundice, hypertension, cancer, etc. This work was conducted to optimize the parameters of spray drying process for production of blood fruit juice powder and its quality was compared with freeze dried and tray dried powder. It was observed that powder produced by spray drying techniques resulted in higher yield, solubility and better retention of resveratrol content and was considered to be of superior quality, having a higher degree of reconstitution ratio as compared to powders produced by freeze and tray drying techniques. High performance liquid chromatography study of blood fruit powder showed the presence of resveratrol and other phenolic compounds. Scanning electron microscope was used to study the surface morphology and it revealed that spray-dried powder has uniformity in shape and size as compared to freeze dried and tray dried powder. The present investigation indicated that spray drying results in better, superior quality powders that are easier for packaging, transportation, having better shelf life.

This work aims to study the qualitative properties of spray‐dried blood fruit powder (BFP) and to determine sorption isotherm through model fitting. The results showed that maximum yield was obtained with 30% maltodextrin (MD) at 150°C, having 1.57% moisture content and water activity (Aw) value of 0.3, respectively. Other characteristic properties of powder viz., hygroscopicity, bulk density, and solubility were also determined. Field‐emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) was used for morphological and mineral compositional studies. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), and particle size distribution (PSD) of BFP were also evaluated. Moisture sorption isotherm (MSI) study of BFP resulted in good fitting with Peleg and GAB model. Therefore, it was concluded that superior quality BFP could be produced by a spray‐drying technique with 30% (w/w) MD and drying at 150°C temperature. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Blood fruit (Haematocarpus validus) has important bioactive compounds, antioxidant properties, and some essential minerals, which play a significant role in human nutrition and traditional medicine for treating arthritis, jaundice, hypertension, cancer, etc. The processing of blood fruit juice/pulp by spray‐drying technique to produce powder is classified among the best processes resulting in better, superior‐quality powders that are ease for packaging, transportation, and with increased shelf life. MSI study helps in providing information regarding food processing operations related to drying, packaging, and storage.