New passive modified atmosphere packaging to extend peaches shelf life at ambient temperature to reduce economic losses
ISSN: 0007-070X
Article publication date: 9 August 2022
Issue publication date: 21 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Honey peaches are rich in a variety of vitamins and are well known in China as the queen of fruit. However, as highly climacteric fruit, peach is too easy to affect its economic value. In this paper, a new passive modified atmosphere packaging system was proposed to solve the lack of water vapour removal capacity – which is still the technical bottleneck of passive modified atmosphere packaging. This paper aims to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Under the conditions of relative humidity 85−90% and temperature 28°C−38°C, the influence of new passive modified atmosphere packaging on the shelf life and quality of 70% ripe peaches was studied in the paper. The effect of the new passive modified atmosphere packaging (PMAP) on fruit appearance, colour, taste, flavour, soluble solids, Vitamin C and titratable acid was investigated.
Findings
Regardless of whether 1-Methylcyclopropene is added or not, the research results show that the new PMAP has a significant effect on extending the shelf life and maintaining the quality of peaches. Compared with the control group, the shelf life of peaches treated with modified atmosphere packaging and 1-Methylcyclopropene was prolonged by 7 and 11 days, increasing the retailer's revenue by 44 and 75%.
Originality/value
A new integrated structure, which is composed of two types of films with high oxygen and high water vapour permeability was designed for the retail of peaches at room temperature. The former was mainly responsible for regulating the concentration of O2 and CO2, while the latter was for removing water vapour and regulating the relative humidity in PMAP.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Declaration of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Citation
Sang, X., Yang, L., Li, D., Xu, W., Fu, Y. and Shi, J. (2023), "New passive modified atmosphere packaging to extend peaches shelf life at ambient temperature to reduce economic losses", British Food Journal, Vol. 125 No. 4, pp. 1504-1515. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-07-2021-0840
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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