UniSZA students create 9 innovative sweet potatobased food products
Students specialising in Food Technology from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) have created nine innovative food products based on the ‘vitato’ (orange-fleshed) and ‘lembayung’ (purple-fleshed) varieties of sweet potatoes.
UniSZA Biosources and Food Industry Faculty dean Prof Dr Hafizan Juahir said the creations produced through the ‘2024 New Food Product Launch Day’ programme, involved nine groups of students required to create products based on sweet potatoes – one of the main crops in the UniSZA Besut Campus’ farm.
“Through this programme, we also train to produce scientists in the field of food technology, and at the same time educate them as entrepreneurs.
“UniSZA always strives to ensure that every product produced by students is brought into the market,” he told Bernama.
Hafizan said the creations included ‘LembaYo Ice Cream’, a sweet potato-flavoured frozen yogurt; ‘Sweetatto Bangkit’ (lembayung potatobased biscuits); ‘CheezyVitaball’ (cheese-filled sweet potato balls), and ‘Cutiebite Gummy Bear’ (vitato potato-based gummy candies).
“Other creations include ‘Cheeky Chips’ (paprika-flavored sweet potato chips), ‘Dotato’ (vitato potato frozen donuts), ‘Sambal Gepto’ (sweet potato stir-fry sambal), ‘Vitatobokki’ (sweet potato rice cake), and ‘VitAtoff’ (caramel candy with sweet potato filling).”
He said the products developed by the final-year undergraduate students in Food Technology were created through in-depth research on the nutritional content and chemical reactions in each product.
Meanwhile, Nur Atiqah Hanis Mahyudin, 23, said the LembaYo Ice Cream product produced by her group featured a sweet and sour combination of yogurt, lembayung potatoes, and a syrup topping made from lembayung potatoes.
“We spent three months studying various aspects to produce this product, and we’re very happy to have been chosen as the first-place winners after being judged by a jury from the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi), the Malaysian Ministry of Health (MoH) and other agencies,” she said.
In the programme, the product Sweetatto Bangkit came in second, while CheezyVitaball placed third. — Bernama