Impact of Different Combinations of Processing Steps on Product Quality and Proximate Composition of Bêche-de-mer: A Case Study from Sri Lanka

Table 3

Proximate composition of the differently processed export-quality bêche-de-mer of H. spinifera, B. vitiensis, and S. naso.

#	Species	Exporters’ ranking	Sample code	% Moisture	% Protein (DM)	% Ash (DM)	% Fat (DM)
1	H. spinifera	1	F20DCF	^d	^cd	^ab	^a
		2	F20PST	^c	^a	^bc	^a
		3	F20PLF	^c	^b	^cd	^a
		4	S15DSF	^e	^a	^cd	^b
		5	F15DLT	^de	^bcd	^a	^b
		6	F10PLF	^b	^d	^d	^a
		7	F10DST	^a	^a	^abc	^b
		8	F10DLT	^a	^bc	^cd	^a
2	B. vitiensis	1	F15ST	^ab	^a	^a	^cd
		2	F10ST	^ab	^a	^b	^d
		3	S10ST	^a	^a	^a	^bc
		3	S20LF	^b	^a	^ab	^c
		4	S15LF	^ab	^a	^a	^d
		5	S15LT	^ab	^a	^a	^ab
		6	F10LT	^a	^a	^a	^c
		7	F20LF	^b	^a	^a	^a
3	S. naso	1	S3SF	^b	^a	^ab	^a
		2	F3SF	^a	^de	^c	^c
		3	S6SF	^ab	^bc	^c	^ab
		4	F6SF	^ab	^e	^c	^ab
		4	F9LF	^ab	^cd	^a	^bc
		5	F6LT	^ab	^de	^abc	^abc
		6	S6LF	^ab	^ab	^c	^bc
		7	S3LF	^b	^de	^bc	^bc

Values in the same column for each species bearing different letters are significantly different (). The proximate results are expressed in % (m) dry weight basis.