Paper Title
Sensory Characterizations, Acceptability, Shelf Life And Economics Of Seaweed-Coconut Candy

Abstract
Coconut candy is a delicious sweet Filipino dessert. This study primarily aimed to develop standardized value-added product coconut candy that is added with seaweed (Eucheuma sp.) with is a very rich source of essential minerals. Specifically, it aimed to determine the significant difference in seaweed-coconut candy’s sensory attributes like appearance, odor, flavor, texture and general acceptability, its shelf life and economics compared to the commercially available coconut candy. Two-group experimental design was used in this study. Arithmetic mean and t-testat 0.01 probability levelwere the statistical tools used in interpreting the gathered data. Seaweed-coconut candy as the experimental group got higher ratings in all measured sensory attributes. The interpreted data showed that seaweed-coconut candy’sappearance, odor, flavor, texture and general acceptability, the seaweed-coconut candy havesignificant differences when compared tocommercially available coconut candy. The shelf life of seaweed-coconut candy was significantly longer than the commercially available coconut candy. Their economics was analyzed by computing their Return on Investments (ROI) where seaweed-coconut candy had 84.62% while commercial coconut candy had 45.16%. Thus, coconut-seaweed candy is more acceptable for the consumers and more profitable. Key words - Sensory, characterization, acceptability, shelf life, economics