Effects of different storage technologies and temperatures on the quality and nutritional value of yellow-fleshed kiwifruit

Abstract

The PhD project set out to study and optimise storage yellow-flesh kiwifruit ‘Soreli’. It compared two storage methods: air storage and gaseous ozone treatment during cold storage. Different temperatures and gaseous ozone concentrations were used. The efficacy of ozone is affected by extrinsic and intrinsic factors, which get difficult the prediction of ozone behaviour in presence of specific compounds and environmental factors such as medium pH, temperature and humidity. Initially the yellow-flesh kiwifruit ‘Soreli’ was studied in comparison with the green-flesh fruit ‘Hayward’ to determine the characteristics of ‘Soreli’ and set the limit of effectiveness of the gaseous ozone and used temperatures on both cultivars. During the first trial fruit were stored at 0 °C and at gaseous ozone concentration of ppb in continuous flow for 42 days; and during the second trial fruits underwent at 4 °C and 300 ppb storage conditions for 60 days, comparing the treated fruits with the fruits stored at air cold storage. Subsequently, the main objective was to understand the behaviour of the studied yellow-flesh kiwifruit when it stored at different storage conditions for 60 days. The chosen gaseous ozone concentration was 300 ppb, according to some regarding researches, and the temperatures were 2 °C and 4 °C. To evaluate the performance of ‘Soreli’, the response of antioxidant system to ozone postharvest treatment and cold temperature and physico-chemical, microbiological and qualitative traits were studied. Moreover, due to the allergenicity emerging problem, the detection of the allergens in kiwifruit-containing food products was considered.