19 - Fruit quality control, evaluation, and analysis

Abstract

Quality control takes place at various stages of citrus fruit handling and marketing. Quality attributes can be evaluated by both subjective and objective methods. The objective methods are precise and involve the use of instruments, while subjective methods make use of human senses. Quality evaluation methods are grouped into destructive and non-destructive methods depending on whether fruit is destroyed during analysis or remains intact. The advantage of non-destructive methods is that they can be used when fruit is still attached to the tree and quality can be monitored. Moreover, they can be used after harvest to make sure that every fruit sent to the market meets the quality norms, in contrast to the destructive method, in which a representative sample is taken and is lost during analysis. Most of the conventional methods of quality evaluation are destructive. The quality attributes and evaluation methods are grouped into three categories for analysis: physical, chemical, and physiological, on the basis of analytical process and principles involved. Microbial quality is evaluated in processed citrus fruit, but physiological attribute evaluation is not done in processed fruit. These are mostly objective methods. However, sensory evaluation is subjective and based on the response of human senses to external and internal fruit quality.