EFFECT OF EDIBLE COATING APPLICATION ON QUALITY AND SHELF LIFE OF STRAWBERRY FRUITS

Abstract

In this study, we seek to examine the capability of some locally available by-product of food processing (lemon, orange and mandarin essential oils extracted from respective peels) and red beet root peel based edible coating (RBRP) with or without essential oils on maintaining the post-harvest quality and shelf life of strawberry fruits. Sorted strawberries were submerged in the respective solutions of treatments for two minutes then air dried for two hours in a sterile room. After drying, the fruits were then equally packed into punnets. A total of 36 punnets for each treatment were obtained and stored at 2±1°C to be used for determining the different parameters over a period of 18 days. For determination of the changes in microbial communities, physicochemical and sensory evaluations of treated fruits, six boxes from each treatment were randomly taken after 0, 4, 7, 10, 14, and 18 days of storage and never returned back. The whole set of experiment was carried out two times. The experimental design was completely randomized design with six replications. Treatments T1-Beetroot peel extract (B)