Industrial relevance:Melon juice has many beneficial health effects. It has high sugar content, pH (5.6–6.0) and a
fairly short shelf life. Therefore, pasteurization is required. But the thermal pasteurization has some undesired effects
on the juice quality. Consumer demands for high quality fruit juice with fresh-like characteristics has markedly
expanded in recent years. In this study, an alternative lemon–melon juice (LMJ) blend formulation was
developed, and pasteurized using both UV-C irradiation and mild heat treatment. The shelf life stability of pasteurized
LMJ blends was assessed by means of principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis.
The shelf life of LMJ blends treated by both methods was increased from 2 days to 30 days. The multivariate
data analysis was successfully applied as a tool for an overall evaluation of the shelf-life of the product. UV-C irradiation
has a comparable effect on microbial stability at 4 °C and better quality preservation performance than
heat treatment for obtaining both shelf-stable and fresh-like LMJ blends. This would be a major advantage in processing
of nutritious juice products.