Abstract
The improvement of the storage solutions and the infrastructure is a significant opportunity to the management of the post - harvest fruit losses and the maintenance of the quality in the supply chain. The environmental issue and the sustainability of the applied processes are the key of the succesful for the innovation of the food system; the sanification of the storage environment could represent a good opportunity to achieve this objective. The focus of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of the ozone (O3) such environmental sanitization system to limit both the quantitative and the qualitative losses of the raspberry fruits. Fruits exposed to the O3 constant concentration of 500 ppb (S1) and to the O3 concentration between 200 and 50 ppb (S2) were compared with fruits maintained in the normal atmosphere (control). The efficacy of the S1 and S2 treatments were evaluated measuring along the storage time the fruits weight losses (%), the total soluble solids content (SSC), the pulp firmness, the acidity content, the skin colour and the most important nutraceutical compounds. The fruits were stored at 1±1°C in a cold room held at 90–95% RH for 3, 6, 9 and 13 days. After each time at low temperature the same berries were held in shelf life for different additional days (respectively +6, +3, +9 and +2) at 20±1°C to simulate retailer conditions. All the qualitative and nutraceutical traits were maintained to the exposure of O3. Fruits stored with the S2 treatment showed the highest sensorial profile.
