Temperatures and shelf-life duration in the stawberry supply chain

• Author(s): Alcéo, Rita Gonçalves André
• Date: 2016
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/13359
• Origin: Repositório da UTL
• Subject(s): strawberry; last mile; quality; supply chain; temperatura
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: English
• Advisor(s): Almeida, Domingos Paulo Ferreira
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

Description

Mestrado em Engenharia Alimentar - Instituto Superior de Agronomia - UL

Strawberry is a very perishable fruit that requires proper temperature management to reduce losses. Temperature abuses in the strawberry supply chain leads to high losses and dissatisfaction on the part of consumers and retailers. The temperature was monitored in two commercial circuits from harvesting to the final consumer, in June and July of 2016. Temperatures outside and inside of 500 g clamshells and inside the fruits were recorded in the three locations of the pallet. The air temperature inside 5 vehicles trunks and 5 domestic refrigerators were recorded at 60 seconds intervals. Strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa) packaged in clamshells were stored at 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 °C. Fruit were evaluated for colour, firmness, soluble solids content (SSC), and titratable acidity (TA). A 10-member panel assessed the fruit for odour, texture, juiciness, flavour, and overall liking at the same sampling dates. In the studied circuits fruits were exposed to an accumulated time-temperature (ATT) of 502.3 and 588.8 °C h. In both the display in store represented the largest contribution to the ATT (273.1 and 281.2 °C h). The maximum temperatures recorded in trunks each day were 47.3, 40.3, 41.4 and 48.2 °C with an outdoor temperature of 24.0, 26.1, 28.2 and 36.6 °C. In refrigerators were recorded average temperatures of 7.2, 4.3, 9.2, 7.4 and 7.7 ° C with reaching temperature fluctuations higher than 5 °C. The temperature had little effect on the physicochemical characteristics and sensory evaluation of the strawberry, but strongly influenced the evolution of the losses. The clamshells have become unmarketable after 3 days at 20 °C and 5 days at 15 °C. Damages development can arise in the retail or just in consumers houses with the ‘last mile’ temperatures being possibly the responsible for the biggest quality depreciation on strawberries