Effect of edible coatings on ‘Misty’ blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) fruits stored at low temperature

Abstract

Blueberry fruits are modern remedy for different health complications, due to presence of different nutrients and antioxidants. Nutrient rich blueberry cannot to be stored for many days because of its poor shelf life of merely 2–4 days at ambient conditions. Hence, there is lack of strategy to extend their availability for longer time. To fill this gap, the use of edible coatings has come to the way to increase the freshness of fruits. Hence, we studied the effect of four edible coatings such as carboxy methyl cellulose (1%), xanthan gum (0.3%), guar gum (0.75%) and gum Arabic (10%) on the ‘Misty’ blueberry fruits stored at low-temperature condition (1 ± 1 °C and 85–90% RH). During storage, observations on different physical and functional attributes were recorded till 35th day of storage. Our results showed that all the coatings were effective in extension of shelf life of coated fruits but the CMC-coated ‘Misty blueberry fruits exhibited 44% lesser weight loss and maintained 22% higher firmness over non-coated fruits. Similarly, such fruits maintained ⁓ 40% higher level of ascorbic acid, 16% total phenolic content, 14% total anthocyanin content and 13% antioxidant activity. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that under low-temperature storage condition, CMC (1%) was the most effective coating as it increased the shelf life of ‘Misty’ blueberry up to 35 days of storage while maintaining quality.