Regulation of Humidity in Fresh Produce Packaging

Abstract

United Nations' (UN) ambitious goal to halve per capita global food waste by 2030, and to the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 2 of zero hunger. This goal aims not only at ending hunger but at ensuring that everyone have access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food all year round (UN, 2015). Fresh produce are known to provide valuable sources of essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and complex carbohydrates (Lee et al., 1995). Recklessly, from all food that is being wasted and lost, fresh produce, inter alia roots and tubers, have the highest wastage rates (45 %) of any food product. Almost half of all fresh produce produced are simply wasted (FAO, 2011). Such high wastage rate is due to the fact that fresh produce are unique among food products as they remain metabolically (e.g. respiring) and physically (e.g. transpiring) active and their shelf and storage life are shortened as consequence of these processes (Mahajan et al., 2014; Zagory and Kader, 1988). Therefore, there is a need to understand the physiological aspects of fresh produce in order to provide optimal solutions for extending shelf life and minimize postharvest losses. As illustrated in Figure 1, there are three main paths that can be taken into account to tackle the problem of food loss and waste (Porat et al., 2018). The first is the technological path, which focuses on the development of effective preservation technologies that are capable of inhibiting fresh produce losses (Lee et al., 1995). The second is through consumer behaviour studies, which include consumer awareness campaigns, advertisements and instruction on how to do appropriate Refrigeration no no no no # = Number; Ø = diameter of perforation. * Contained the following message on the packaging film: "to maintain the quality please store in the refrigerator". Based on the background information provided, the research questions for this PhD thesis's were formulated as follows:  Transpiration rate (TR) models have been widely reported in the literature, mainly for unpackaged products with unrestricted air flow. Can these models be applied to predict water loss of packaged products? Theoretical background and literature review 13 2.3 Mechanisms and modelling of water loss in horticultural products In: Reference Module in Food Sciences. Elsevier, pp. 1-5.

Condensation regulation of packaged strawberries under fluctuating storage temperature

“…Moreover, as shown in Figure , the increase in temperature led to an immediate decrease in the RH. The reason for that is that at higher temperatures, air can hold more water vapour and as a consequence, RH is decreased . After day 1, there already seemed to be a trend to equilibrium, nevertheless, after the temperature fluctuation (from day 2), the equilibrium was affected.…”

Impact of modified atmosphere and humidity packaging on the quality, off-odour development and volatiles of ‘Elsanta’ strawberries

“…However, this approach addresses only to optimum gaseous composition and does not take into account the accumulation of water vapour. Water vapour evolution inside fresh produce packages often limits product´s shelf life due to the formation of condensation (Bovi & Mahajan, 2017).…”

Content Analysis of Food Safety Information in Apple-Drying Recipes from YouTube, Blogs, Cookbooks, and Extension Materials

“…One blog instructed to package the dried apples “immediately”, implying no cooling step. The cooling step is important, because storing dried apples immediately can lead to condensation formation in the packaging and promote the growth of microorganisms [ 60 , 61 ].…”