Post-harvest loss of fruits and vegetables are estimated to be approx 5 to 30 percent in the supply chain from harvest to consumption due to lack of infrastructure for post harvest management, processing and value added techniques.
Modern lifestyles and diets have prompted the human to adequately store a variety of fruits and vegetables, influenced on the development and implementation of many methods and procedures for preservation. Valorisation by adopting recent and improved processing technologies provides a great opportunity for the growth and development of the food sector. Value addition refers to the process of changing or transforming a product from its original state to a more valuable state and it provides more variety to consumers with the improvement in the organoleptic properties. Traditional methods of value addition through preservation include: canning; drying/dehydration; preserves; freezing; preparation of intermediate moisture foods; beverages (fermented, carbonated); and juice powder using established standard techniques. There is a recent trend of valorisation through packaging and also using novel thermal (ohmic heating, microwave heating, radio frequency heating) and non-thermal (pulsed electric fields, high-pressure processing, ultrasound, and gamma radiation) processing technologies for preservation. Technological procedures of processing of fruit and vegetables can be classified into a few processing methods:
Traditional Processing Methods:
Drying, concentrating, heating (cooking, baking, frying) cooling, use of additives - preservatives, acidification, fermentation;
Improved Traditional Methods of Processing:
The application of increased temperatures (sterilization, pasteurization), the application of low temperature (cooling, freezing), aseptic packaging, controlled atmosphere, freeze-drying, microfiltration and membrane processes, modified atmosphere packaging
New Methods:
High voltage pulse techniques, photodynamic inactivation, microwave processing – heating, high-pressure treatment, ionizing radiation, heating of electrical resistance effect and induction.
This story is from the June 2019 edition of Food Marketing & Technology - India.
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This story is from the June 2019 edition of Food Marketing & Technology - India.
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