Introduction

The Philippines is known for its vast fruit crops due to its tropical weather. Fruits like pineapple, mango,
banana and coconut are produced in millions of tons per year. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority
(PSA), 2.6 million and 0.9 million tons of the former two crops are harvested per annum, respectively.

The huge amount of pineapples and mangoes produced by the country are exported as raw fruit crops,
consumed locally and processed as beverage or canned fruit. The production of processed items results in massive
waste generation classified as agro-industrial waste. Solid wastes are generated in the form of skin, pulp, crown,
core, seed kernel and even overripe fruits. Their reuse in processes is of particular interest due to their availability,
low cost and characteristics that allow at obtaining value-added products (Roda, et al., 2014).

Several efforts have been made to utilize these wastes and one particular application that this study is
primarily dealing with is by using waste pineapple and mango juice as substrate for metabolic fermentation to
produce vinegar.

During metabolic fermentation, yeast inoculi (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) utilize sugar in pineapple and
mango juice to produce ethanol in an anaerobic medium. The production of vinegar involves an additional aerobic
fermentation step, where an acetic acid bacterium (Acetobacter) converts ethanol in cider into acetic acid (Heikefelt,
2011).

Vinegar has widely been produced through biotechnological processes like double metabolic fermentation.
There are various types of vinegars obtained from various sources like spirit, wine, cider, malt, whey and rice. It is
used as a food additive and acts as an effective preservative against food spoilage. Several studies have carried out
investigations on vinegar production from various raw materials such as fruits, fruit peels and agro-industrial waste
(Kulkarni, 2015).

The rich nutrients and considerable percentage of reducing sugars present in mangoes and pineapples, 14-
23 and 14Brix, respectively, makes it suitable as substrate for alcoholic fermentation and vinegar production by
acetic acid fermentation (Po & Po, 2012).

The effective and efficient utilization of fruit wastes will increase farmers profits, generate an array of
value added products, open livelihood opportunities and help in waste management and reduction of environmental
pollution.