Comparative analysis of different methods for fruit quality determination

Abstract

To investigate and monitor the quality of fruits is of utmost importance in order to decide the shelf life and vending price of the fruits. Many different methods are utilized to determine the quality of fruits which can be broadly categorized as either objective methods or subjective methods. Objective methods involve use of instruments and are offer precise results whereas subjective methods use human senses and results may vary with the users. Depending on whether fruit is broken during analysis or remains undamaged, quality analysis methods can be grouped as either destructive or nondestructive methods. This paper presents a qualitative comparison of destructive as well as nondestructive methods utilized for quality analysis of fruits. Detailed review is presented about the research progress in the area of fruit quality analysis. Different methods consider diverse quality attributes and accordingly the selection of method for particular fruit quality analysis is conceded. Decisive comparison of most commonly used methods of quality analysis presented in this paper can facilitate analysts and researchers to carryout in-depth study of one or more specific methods and help the end users to select most appropriate method for their application area.