How is active packaging as a method of preserving fruits and importance of handling packing of fruits and vegetables in prolonging their life and maintaining their quality?
Fruits and vegetables (fresh produce) are highly perishable items with active metabolism during the postharvest period. Generally even after harvesting, fresh produce continues the respiration. This causes to release CO2 and water vapor. In addition, respiring fresh produce release ethylene, which promotes ripening and softening of tissues. If this phenomena is not controlled, it leads to limit the shelf life.
Active packaging is a technique that we can incorporate certain subsidiary constituents either directly to the packaging material or fill into a sachet and add to the package headspace.
In case of fruits and vegetables, we can use oxygen scavengers or ethylene scavengers in to the packaging material. To obtain better results, we can modify the atmosphere within the package headspace and incorporate a sachet containing oxygen scavenging constitutes (i.e. Powdered iron, ascorbic acid, and Immobilised enzymes) or ethylene scavengers (i.e. Potassium permanganate, activated carbon and activated clays/zeolites).
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