Modeling cooling of freshness: New study from PACKCHAIN project
A new study in Applied Thermal Engineering virtually tracks the temperature-time history of individual citrus fruit during the postharvest supply chain. The results from authors Wentao Wu and Thijs Defreaye predict fruit quality.
The loss of perishable foods due to lack of refrigeration ranges from 9%-23%. In the case of fresh fruit, the postharvest loss, from the point of harvest until they reach the consumer, can become as high as 38% of the total produced volume.
These substantial losses form the motivation of a newly published study by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Wentao Wu and Dr. Thijs Defraeye. As losses can be minimized by proper temperature control, Dr. Wu investigated the thermal behavior and fruit quality evolution of an entire pallet of citrus fruit throughout the entire cold chain. He could then use the data to find new ways to reduce postharvest losses.
The new study is part of the WFSC Research Program project “Eco-smart ventilated packaging for fresh fruit using virtual cold chains” (PACKCHAIN), which investigates ventilated packaging as an efficient means to increase product quality and shelf life by better and more uniform cooling throughout the cold chain.
In the new publication in Applied Thermal Engineering, first author Dr. Wentao Wu successfully applied a virtual cold chain method and unveiled, in a unique way, significant differences in cooling strategies and fruit quality among cold chains. He found that the variation in temperature-related quality loss was limited for individual fruit in a cold chain with proper precooling. Future studies will be directed at the impact of different packaging types on the cooling heterogeneity and quality loss.
Read the full article "Identifying heterogeneities in cooling and quality evolution for a pallet of packed fresh fruit by using virtual cold chains" in Applied Thermal Engineering external pagehere
The paper is an output of the WFSC Research Program project “Eco-smart ventilated packaging for fresh fruit using virtual cold chains" (PACKCHAIN). For more information on the project, visit the project page.