Coconut Inflorescence Sap Collection for Future Food and Bioresource Technological Advancements

Abstract

Fresh coconut inflorescence sap is a coconut-based food product. It is the sweet, golden-colored sap collected from the immature and unopened coconut inflorescence. Despite coconut sap's being a great source of nutrients, its existing collection methods provide challenges to our coconut sap farmers, tappers, and by-product processors. The extraction and collection process of coconut sap farming have a significant effect on the quality and the production rate of its value-added products. Exiting methods of collecting coconut sap has three major problems: (1) coconut sap preservation problem, (2) extraction and collection method incompetency, and (3) decreasing number of coconut sap tapper (human resources). This study serves as a preliminary study towards developing technological innovation that would help our coconut inflorescence sap farmers not just increase their product quality and production rate, but also improve existing methods that carry a number of disadvantages and limitations. The latest sap collection method developed, which is the utilization of coconut sap chiller devices, offers a lot of advantages as it functions desirably. However, its design still carries some unanswered issues. Hence, enhancement of the said device is proposed. Consideration should be given to mechanization and/or automation of sap collecting devices. The latest automation technological advancements can be beneficial in achieving these much-demanded enhancements. Technological advancement that will address sap collection incompetency and difficulty is highly recommended.