Antioxidant stability of small fruits in postharvest storage at room and refrigerator temperatures

The effects of pre-harvest and post-harvest factors on the nutritional quality of strawberry fruits: A review

“…Many authors have studied how phenolic composition, anthocyanin, and TAC in berry may change during storage treatments [49,54,[59][60][61]. Our group [54] also found that the most evident effect of storage (storage for two days at 4 • C one day at room temperature, in the dark) in the cultivars investigated was in folate content, since the levels of folate increased in all the genotype studied.…”

“…With regard to the NQ, the total phenolic and anthocyanin content are not affected by storage, as well as vitamin C; on the contrary, the flavonoid concentration is significantly higher in fruits after short-term storage [49,54,[59][60][61]. These results could be due to the fact that during storage an increase in the content of early-eluting polar phenolic antioxidants occur.…”

“…Short-term storage positively affects also the antioxidant capacity of strawberry fruits, since the complex reactions taking place within the fruits during postharvest period may facilitate formation of compounds with enhanced antioxidant capacity, even when fruit attributes, such as taste and smell, have already significantly deteriorated [61]. Generally, during storage TAC can increase [54] or remain stable [60,61], and the higher is the exposure time and temperature of storage the greater is the increase in antioxidant capacity [58,62].…”

Postharvest Handling of Berries

“…On the contrary, Piljac-Žegarac and Šamec [2] reported that the marketable quality of strawberries was preserved at 4°C for a prolonged period of time in comparison with storage at room temperature, while higher antioxidant capacity values were maintained at the lower temperatures, as opposed to 25°C. Similarly, storage of strawberries at 1°C together with moisture loss control reduced losses of total ascorbic acid by 7.5-fold compared to fruit stored at 20°C [40].…”

“…What's more, due to their high content in antioxidant and bioactive compounds, they can be considered as functional foods. In efect, diferent studies conducted on berry fruits report antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiinlammatory, anticancer, and cardioprotective efects, which were atributed to their high content in bioactive compounds, mainly diferent phenolic compounds [2].…”