The Contribution of Impact Damage to the Quality Changes of Stored Banana Fruit

Abstract

Loss in fresh fruit mainly occurs due to their susceptibility to mechanical damage during the postharvest supply chain. Mechanical damage can reduce the quality of fresh produce during handling, especially if not consumed directly, which is a critical food safety challenge and economic issue. Therefore, food security and agricultural efficiency requires vital action to minimize such losses. Possible mitigation includes reducing the occurrence of damage by investigating the effects of the application of external forces during the handling of fresh fruit. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the local banana quality changes affected by impact energy and forces resulting from simulated handling practices during storage at three different temperature conditions for 12 days. By using the pendulum technique, local banana fruit were damaged by low (0.074 ± 0.003 J), medium (0.160 ± 0.008 J), and high (0.27 ± 0.016 J) impact forces. Fruit from each impact energy level were divided into groups and stored at 5 °C, 13 °C, and 22 °C. The changes in weight loss, firmness, and color (lightness (L*) and redness (a*)) were evaluated. The rate of transpiration was also determined. The study results showed a gradual reduction in weight loss percent in high, medium, and low impact bruised bananas under all storage conditions. The highest recorded weight loss percent was found in high impact (0.27 ± 0.016 J) injured banana fruit (19.55%) stored at 22 °C after 12 days of storage. Storage at 22 °C and damage from the highest impact energy accelerated the increment of the transpiration rate (2.031 mg kg−1 s−1) of banana fruit on day 12 of storage. Furthermore, high impact bruising and storage at ambient temperature condition resulted in 76.69% firmness reduction in banana fruit after 12 days of storage. Storage at 13 °C showed the fewest changes in visual properties, such as color, of impacted bananas. The color parameters (lightness and redness) were statistically influenced (p < 0.05) by impact level, storage temperatures, and storage duration. Chilling injuries were highly observed after day 4 of storage in banana fruit stored at 5 °C in all damaged fruit. Two of the most critical factors that reduced the incidence of severe damage due to mechanical damage were: (1) storage management, and (2) increasing people’s awareness about the main mechanism of this problem and how to reduce it.