COVID-19 Crisis Catalyzed Disruptions in the Thai Seafood Supply Chain

This research studied the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Thai Seafood Supply Chain (ThaiSSC) and the responses taken by the supply chain from the beginning of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2022. Twenty-four semi-structured 1-to-1 in-depth interviews with veterans and leaders of the Thai seafood industry (farmers, processors, seafood brokers, importers, exporters, government officials and distributors) revealed the overall negative impact of the pandemic due to drastic changes in peoples’ livelihoods, and laws and regulations. Nevertheless, ThaiSSC maintained its overall structure, due to the transformations of many actors in the chain. Prompatanapak and Lopetcharat (2020) reported the transformation resembled to this findings. Hence, the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst in accelerating these transformations from several years to a few months. This demonstrates the resiliency of the ThaiSSC, even though, about 30% of its connections disappeared due to the diminished influences of several stakeholders. Pre-processors and sourcing agents emerged as important new actors in the Thai seafood supply chain. The new roles and functions of these actors in the Thai seafood supply chain after the COVID-19 pandemic are reported and compared with those from before the pandemic

Physicochemical Properties of Hom Nil (Oryza sativa) Rice Flour as Gluten Free Ingredient in Bread

Hom Nil (Oryza sativa), a Thai black rice, contains polyphenolic compounds which have antioxidant properties. The objective of this study was to investigate physicochemical properties of Hom Nil rice flour (HN) and its application in gluten free bread by using Hom Mali 105 rice flour (HM) as the reference. The results demonstrated that HN flour had significantly higher average particle sizes (150 ± 0.58 µm), whereas the content of amylose (17.6 ± 0.2%) was lower than HM flour (particle sizes = 140 ± 0.58 µm; amylose content = 21.3 ± 0.6%). Furthermore, HN contained higher total phenolic compounds (TPC) (2.68 ± 0.2 mg GAE/g flour), total anthocyanins (293 ± 30 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside/g flour), and the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) (73.5 ± 1.5 mM FeSO4/g) than HM flour (TPC = 0.15 mg GAE/g flour and FRAP = 2.24 mM FeSO4/g flour). In thermal properties, the onset temperature (To), the peak temperature (Tp) and the conclusion (Tc) temperature of HN flour were similar to the values of HM flour. However, HN flour had lower enthalpy change (ΔH) than HM flour. The results showed that HN flour had lower swelling power and higher solubility than HM flour at the temperature between 55 °C and 95 °C. In pasting properties, HN flour also showed lower peak, trough and breakdown viscosity than HM flour. In addition, the bread samples prepared by HN flour had higher value of hardness and lower value of cohesiveness than the bread prepared from HM flour. Taken together, the findings suggest that HN flour could be used as an alternative gluten-free ingredient for bread product

The influence of Cu(II) ions on physicochemical properties of potato starch oxidised by hydrogen peroxide

The study investigates the influence of Cu(II) ions used as a catalyst on the effectiveness of potato starch oxidation by hydrogen peroxide, and compares the physicochemical properties of the modified starches. The starch was oxidised by H 2 O 2 alone and with the addition of Cu(II) ions at three concentrations: 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 g per 100 g d.m. of starch. The oxidised starches were examined for the content of carboxyl groups, carbonyl groups, amylose and copper, and for water-binding capacity and water solubility at temperatures of 60 and 80 8 C. Colour parameters ( L a b ), susceptibility to retrogradation, thermodynamic characteristics of pasting, intrinsic viscosity and pasting characteristic by RVA were also determined. The results indicate that the concentration of Cu(II) ions added as a catalyst has an effect on both the effectiveness of the oxidation process and the physicochemical properties of starch