Zeitschrift für Agrarwissenschaft und Lebensmittelforschung
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Abstrakt

Strategies Used to Prolong the Shelf Life of Fresh Commodities

Sandarani MDJC, Dasanayaka DCMCK and Jayasinghe CVL

Fruits and vegetables are metabolically active, perishable fresh commodities that have a shorter shelf life. Postharvest treatments of fresh produce are used as strategies to minimize major losses in nutritional and quality attributes. Moreover, they are crucial in terms of consumer safety. Post-harvest treatments will slow down the physiological processes in fresh fruits and vegetables such as respiration, senescence and ripening. In addition, those treatments also reduce the incidence of pathogen attacks and microbial contamination to increase the shelf life of fresh commodities. Recent studies involving postharvest treatments are reviewed, with the aim to capture the state of art on current research about strategies used to reduce postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables.