CHAPTER 2 - CHALLENGES IN HANDLING FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter highlights the challenges in postharvest handling that affect consumer acceptability. The challenges include stress physiology, quality management, marketing, and food safety. Almost any handling technique used to keep harvested crops fresh for an extended period of time causes some stress to that tissue. Temperature extremes, desiccation, microbial invasion, gaseous atmosphere, light, and mechanical handling can all induce stress in a harvested fruit or vegetable. Certain fruits and vegetables are susceptible to disorders, such as chilling, freezing, and CO2 injury. Quality assurance is an integral part of most manufacturing industries, including food processing. There is less motivation to develop quality management programs for fresh produce than for other food items, partly because of the generic nature of produce marketing and the difficulty of applying principles developed for processed foods to living respiring tissue. Fresh produce is a major profit center for supermarket food chains. Fierce competition among chains is changing the merchandising of fresh items. With the exception of a few commodities, most fresh fruits and vegetables are marketed at retail in bulk displays without brand identification. Brands are used in marketing schemes of shippers directed at wholesale distributors, but whether brands will have an impact at retail distribution points is still uncertain. The growing demand for fresh fruits and vegetables by health-conscious consumers also results in increased concern about food safety. Media attention to the use of agricultural chemicals to maintain “cosmetic” quality of fresh produce has heightened this concern. It is not clear how much pesticide use can be reduced without loss of visual quality of fresh fruits and vegetables, nor is it clear how lower visual quality would affect consumption.