Ingenuity in packaging maintains the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables in mixed cargo exported by sea

Abstract

Global agricultural exports are expected to increase in the future. Sea transportation facilitates the carrying of an incomparably large amount of cargo for a much lower cost than by air freight. However, sea transportation takes much longer and the produce quality is inferior to that transported by air. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop technologies to create a more suitable environment for sea transportation. For this reason, a method was devised in which all fruit and vegetables packaged for domestic distribution are wrapped from the outside of the package as additional packaging with a more versatile film, and an actual export demonstration using this method was conducted in this study. Namely, two sets of 28 different kinds of fruits and vegetables were prepared, one that was wrapped in additional packaging and the other with ordinary packaging. These sets were then exported from Japan's Shimizu Port to Singapore as mixed cargo. Following transportation, instrumental analysis and sensory evaluation were performed to compare the quality of the additionally packaged produce with that of the ordinarily packaged produce. This additional packaging greatly reduced the loss of fresh weight of Chinese cabbage, lettuce, cabbage and Japanese white radish. Moreover, the additional packaging reduced the drying of ‘Shine Muscat’ grape stems. However, some produce such as peaches deteriorated in quality due to slight changes in gas concentration. For many items, additional packaging can be a low‐cost option for maintaining quality when exporting fruits and vegetables packaged for routine domestic distribution.

Controlled atmosphere maintains the quality of certain fresh produce in mixed cargo shipments

“…An ethylene absorbent sachet (Green Keeper Sachets, Sagueny group, Egypt) was placed in each box of apples. Extra packaging material (Adfresh M10, 0.05 × 1000 × 1000 mm, Mitsui Chemicals, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) was then placed over the entire outer box (Ikegaya et al, 2021a). This procedure protects other fruits and vegetables from the large amount of ethylene produced by apples (Pathak et al, 2017); no other product was given this treatment.…”

“…In addition, fruits were assessed for quality by instrumental analysis with the instruments and methods used before the export. Visual and instrumental analysis methods were performed as previously described (Ikegaya et al, 2021a). Subsequently, the vegetables were stored at room temperature (~25°C), and the fruits were refrigerated at 4°C.…”