Determination of bruise preventing capacity of the cushioning material in persimmon fruit under pendulum impact test

Abstract

AbstractFruits, essential in human nutrition, go through many stages until they reach the consumption stage. Brıise may occur on the fruit during loading, unloading, and processing. One of the options applied to prevent bruises to fruits throughout the supply chain is to package cushioning materials. This study investigated the number of bruises caused by applying impact energies to the covered and uncoated (bare) persimmon fruits with foam net material. Impact energy applications were carried out with the developed pendulum impact test setup. Dynamic loadings at different impact energy levels, low (0.03 J), medium (0.06 J), and high energy (0.11 J) were applied to three other regions of persimmon fruits (blossom side, lateral diameter, and stem side). Statistical analysis showed that the effect of impact energy on bruise volume was significant (p ˂ 0.01). The study found a linear relationship between bruising volume on persimmons and impact energy. According to the experiment results, it was determined that the bruise volume values of persimmons with foam net used as cushioning material were significantly less than the bare persimmons. As a result of the applied impact energies, it was determined that the average bruise volume of the persimmons was 225.74 mm3 in the bare ones and 21.29 mm3 in the ones covered with foam net. It was also revealed that the blossom side of the persimmon was the most sensitive to impact energy, and the lateral diameter side was the most durable.Practical ApplicationsMechanical bruises to fruits and vegetables during post‐harvest processing can be significant. Bruise‐sensitive fruits such as persimmon increase the size of bruises due to falling from height during filling and unloading. Understanding where and how large the bruising effects caused by impact energies are can help reduce fruit bruises. Packaging practices, which are ways to prevent fruit bruising, play an important role in prolonging the shelf life of the fruit and reducing the risk of physical bruising. In the study, the effect of the cushioning material on the prevention of the size of bruises caused by the impact energy effect on the persimmon fruit was investigated. It is aimed to compare the bruise amount of foam‐coated and non‐foam‐coated persimmon fruits by considering the fruit regions in the applications performed with the pendulum test setup.