The search for alternative sources of natural pigments has stimulated the development of research in various tropical fruits, including jabuticaba. Besides the ability to impart color, to be rich in anthocyanins and polyphenols non-anthocyanin, this fruit also has antioxidant capacity. The objective of this research was to characterize and evaluate the stability of dyes made from peel of jabuticaba. The natural pigments of this fruit were associated with two stabilizers vehicles (maltodextrin and arabic gum), submitted to two dehydration processes (atomization and lyophilization) and exposed to light at a temperature of 25 ± 1 °C, compared with control samples not exposed to light, stored at the same temperature. The stability was evaluated by analysis of anthocyanin, polyphenol, total antioxidant activity and colorimetric characteristics during the storage time being determined regression curve and the degradation kinetics of each. The hydroalcoholic extract of jabuticaba peels showed 48.06 ± 5.76 mg anthocyanins/100g extract, 636.23 ± 0.48 mg of gallic acid/100g of extract and 723 ± 37 mg trolox/100g extract. The dyes show high anthocyanin content, with higher degradation in samples stored under light incidence at 25 °C. Comparing the three proportions of both carbohydrates used, anthocyanin pigments were more stable when used only carbohydrate maltodextrin in the ratio of 30%. Regarding the drying method, freeze-drying led to lower initial loss, however the formulations obtained by spray drying showed to be more stable during storage under both dark and light incidence. Jabuticaba peel was presented as a good source of natural pigments with high levels of bioactive compounds and satisfactory stability under the conditions studied, which leads to consider such fruit as a viable alternative in obtaining dyes.

Keywords— functional food, anthocyanins, natural dye, tropical fruit.