Abstract
Consumer interest in avocado fruit has increased in the last decade in Europe. Nutritional and quality attributes affect the choice of these fruits, whose characteristics must also be maintained in the postharvest period. The preference regarding the feasibility of eating ripe fruits can assure and improve the success of the emerging marketing of avocados. The exposure of fruits to exogenous ethylene (C2H4) treatment can accelerate the process of fruit ripening. The aim of this work was at improving the existing knowledge about the quality traits of avocado cv. Hass fruits at the ready-to-eat stage. The most important qualitative traits (weight loss, dry matter content, hardness pulp, and external and internal fruit colour) were evaluated up to 96 hours, maintaining the fruit at two different temperatures, T1 (+8°C) and T2 (+17°C). A trained sensory panel was conducted at 96 hours to confirm the quality of avocado cv. Hass ripened with exogenous C2H4.
Highlights
Avocado (Persea americana Mill) belongs to the Lauraceae family and represents one of the four most important tropical fruits with global production and trade in expansion across Europe
Fashion trends and companies’ marketing strategies, for instance, repeatedly affect consumer preference to create new food trends and quality standards, which will result in the formulation of new intrinsic requirements requested by retailers and industries
The ripening processes in Persea americana Mill affect the oil and dry matter (DM) contents, which are inversely related. Different products, such as calcium carbide (CaC2), ethylene glycol (C2H5O2), ethylene (C2H4), methyl jasmonate (C13H20O3), and ethephon (C2H6ClO3P), are commercially available to induce the artificial ripening of climacteric fruit, but it is well known that C2H4 exposure accelerates softening safely without possible hazards to human health [16, 17]
Summary
Avocado (Persea americana Mill) belongs to the Lauraceae family and represents one of the four most important tropical fruits with global production and trade in expansion across Europe. The fresh ready-to-eat stage normally describes fruits with a high service level (washed, peeled, and cut) presented at the retail point of sale packaged, but, as in the case of tropical fruits, they can be displayed at the point of sale whole with the peel and pulp already mature. Previous studies focused their attention on improving the postharvest of fresh avocado fruits by managing the temperature or the use of an edible coating or 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP), but limited are those that evaluated the quality of avocado during the ripening stage [22,23,24]. The most important qualitative traits were evaluated up to 96 hours, maintaining the fruit at two different temperatures, T1 (+8°C) and T2
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