Environmental conditions encountered during typical consumer retail display affect fruit and vegetable quality and waste

Effects of packaging and storage conditions on quality and volatile compounds of raspberry fruits

“…After 96 h, similar L values (25.9 and 25.8, respectively) were found. During storage, fruits became less vivid than at harvest (lower chroma, 31.80), and this trend was more evident for fruit packaged with the perforated film (E treatment) which showed the lowest C value (23.3) after 48 h. This can be explained by oxidative browning reaction, as observed in other species in the presence of O 2 (Aday & Caner, 2011;Nunes et al, 2009). The h value is directly related to humidity during storage (GonCalves et al, 2007) decreasing at room temperature with low RH values; at the end of storage (96 h), no statistically significant differences were observed between treatments A and B. Figura 2.…”

“…When raspberries are stored in gaseous mixtures containing 10% O 2 and 15% CO 2 , decay is significantly reduced (Siro, Devlieghere, Jacxsens, Uyttendaele & Debevere, 2006) and the fruits show a more attractive colour compared with those stored under normal atmosphere (NA) conditions (Haffner et al, 2002). Reduced O 2 levels and elevated CO 2 levels have been shown to reduce the respiration rate of fruits (Beaudry, 1999), but the temperature fluctuations that can occur during storage, transport and retail display can generate an unfavourable atmosphere inside the package (Nunes, Emond, Rauth, Dea & Chau, 2009) and the loss of aroma compounds. High CO 2 concentrations can disrupt enzyme systems, such as the lipoxygenase pathway which is involved in the formation of aromatic volatile compounds, while total ester content -and particularly methyl dihydrojasmonate -may decrease after cold storage (Morales et al, 2014).…”

Water loss in table grapes: model development and validation under dynamic storage conditions

“…However, even though the transpiration from fruit can be well described by the approach of steady state solution of Fick's first law, most of the publications on modelling this phenomenon consider constant temperature and RH during the storage time (Hertog et al, 2004a;Maguire et al, 1999;Mahajan et al, 2008). Nunes et al (2009) demonstrated that variations in storage conditions are normally encountered in the cold chain and they have a huge effect on decreasing the quality and shelf life of grapes and other fresh products. However, some authors suggested that the weakest link of the cold chain is the domestic storage, while home refrigerators and freezers frequently present poor temperature control (James et al, 2008;Laguerre et al, 2002).…”

Using jasmonates and salicylates to reduce losses within the fruit supply chain

“…The storability of fruit is often limited and determined by the initial quality at harvest and subsequent storage conditions [1]. The quality of fresh produce may be reduced during transit and subsequent storage due to increased microbial contamination, visual and textural changes, or reduced nutritional value.…”