In the food industry, osmotic
dehydration can be an important stage to obtain partially dry foodstuffs. However, the remaining spent osmotic
solution at the end of the process could become a waste with an important environmental impact due to the large amount of organic compounds that it might contain. Since one of the most important osmotic agents used in osmotic
dehydration is
sucrose, this spent osmotic
solution could be used to be biotransformed to produce fructooligosaccharides by a
fructosyltransferase. This study evaluated the production of fructooligosaccharides using the
fructosyltransferase produced by Aspergillus oryzae N74, and the spent osmotic
solution that resulted in the osmotic
dehydration of Andes berry (Rubus glaucus) and tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea). Assays were conducted at small and
bioreactor scales, using spent osmotic
solution with or without re-concentration. At small scale no significant difference (p > 0.05) was observed in the fructooligosaccharides production yield, ranging from 31.18% to 34.98% for spent osmotic
solution from tamarillo osmotic
dehydration, and from 33.16% to 37.52% for spent osmotic
solution from Andes berry osmotic
dehydration, using either the SOS with or without re-concentration. At
bioreactor scale the highest fructooligosaccharides yield of 58.51 ± 1.73% was obtained with spent osmotic
solution that resulted from tamarillo osmotic
dehydration. With the spent osmotic
solution from Andes berry osmotic
dehydration the yield was 49.17 ± 2.82%. These results showed the feasibility of producing fructooligosaccharides from spent osmotic
solution that is considered a waste in food industry.