Sensory Evaluation and Feasibility Report of Plantain Sandwich for Nigerian Market

Protein-energy malnutrition is a common nutritional disorder in developing countries and constitutes a major public health problem in young children and elderly people. This project is aimed at evaluating the acceptability of plantain-peanut sandwich and roasted at different temperatures. A plantain-peanut sandwich consists of minced protein stuffed into a carbohydrate source made into a roll as a food product. The plantain was roasted at two different temperatures than later enriched with 5%, 10% and 15% peanut butter. The crude protein and crude fibre contents of the plantain samples roasted at 200oC and 240oC showed no significant difference (P˃0.05) while the ash, fat and carbohydrate contents showed that there was a significant difference (P˂0.05). The results of the proximate composition showed that there was a significant difference (P˂0.05) at the two different roasting temperatures of 200oC and 240oC when enriched at 5%, 10% and 15% levels with peanut butter. This pattern of significant increase was also observed with the amino acid profiles at the two different roasting temperature levels. The sensory evaluation record shows that the mean scores for the appearance, taste, colour, aroma, mouthfeel and overall acceptability of the enriched roasted samples varied, but the plantain roasted at 240oC enriched with 15% peanut butter had the highest acceptability level. A feasibility study was carried out to investigate the possibility of producing and marketing a plantain-peanut sandwich. The study revealed that a starting point of 60 packs at 4 fingers per pack sold at 600 Naira per day gave an estimated turnover of 9 million Naira per annum. A breakeven point analysis revealed that a price break even point of 19.14% is feasible while a product breakeven of 18.04% of the estimated annual sales of 15,000 packs is also feasible.