Cost Analysis on Economic Feasibility for the Production of Banana-Coconut Enriched Dairy Ice Cream

Abstract

The present study was aimed to develop and evaluate a value-added, blended dairy-plant source based ice cream incorporating banana purée and coconut extracts, with particular emphasis on cost structure, and economic feasibility. A full-fat control (FFC) ice cream and a medium-fat experimental (MFE) ice cream were formulated, in which only the dairy milk portion was partially replaced with coconut milk, while coconut cream and banana purée were incorporated as additional ingredients. The optimized MFE ice cream formulation comprised of 10.00% banana purée, 4.00% coconut cream along with 50.00% of the milk phase replaced with coconut milk, resulting in 15.84% total fat of which 6.50% was milk fat, and 12.50% milk solids-not-fat (MSNF). In comparison, the FFC ice cream was formulated with 50.00% replacement of milk with coconut milk but devoid of banana purée or coconut cream, yielding 19.12% total fat of which 10.50% was milk fat, and 12.50% MSNF. Both the products were manufactured under identical processing conditions and evaluated for production cost at laboratory-scale and assumed commercial-scale overrun levels. Raw materials cost constituted the major share of the total production cost, with fat-rich ingredients acting as primary cost drivers. Partial replacement of high-cost dairy ingredient with coconut milk along with reduction in the milk fat level resulted in a lower raw materials cost for the MFE product. At a commercial overrun of 90.0 %, the total production cost of the MFE ice cream was ₹ 22.32 per 90 mL serving size, compared to ₹ 23.38 for the FFC ice cream. MFE product exhibited superior palatability, desirable mouthfeel, and was associated with reduced caloric value (268.64 kcal/100 g) relative to the FFC (284.43 kcal/100 g) product. The findings demonstrate that banana–coconut enriched ice cream can be produced as an economically viable, and consumer-acceptable frozen dairy dessert, offering a promising approach for value addition and product diversification in the ice cream industry.