Introduction

Outline

• Importance of fruit and vegetable (FV) as food

• Horticultural production statistics
• Need for postharvest technology
• Postharvest technology
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food
• FV – part of human diet since hunter-gatherer times

• Eat more healthy foods

https://www.thoughtco.com/beginners-guide-to-the-middle-paleolithic-171839
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• WHO – consume 400g FV per day
• Prevent chronic disease with sedentary lifestyle

• FV – part of the five food groups (incl. grains, protein foods

and dairy) (USDA)
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Despite the absence of modern
science, (1800s)

- citrus fruit cure the disease scurvy in

sailors
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Vit. C as the ingredient responsible for
the wound healing properties.

• Dietary sources of vit. C are essential, as

humans lack the ability to synthesize it.

• All FV contain vit. C and as a group it is

the major dietary source, supplying
about 95% of body requirements.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Specific FV - excellent sources of the
other nutrients required for human
health.

- provitamin A carotenoids - essential for

maintenance of ocular health

- folic acid - prevents certain anemias &

spinal defects during fetal development.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Epidemiological evidence

- shows that communities

consuming higher amts. of FV
have lower incidences of
degenerative diseases prevalent
in sedentary affluent societies
(Key 2011; Nyanchoka et al
2022).
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Dietary fibre
- impt. in reducing a raft of adverse medical conditions related to its
interactions with the gastrointestinal tract.

• Advantages
• Prod. of healthful cpds during the fermentation of soluble fibre
• the ability of insoluble fibre to inc. soft stool bulk & shorten transit
time thru the intestinal tract.
Importance of fruit and
vegetable (FV) as food (cont.)
• Antioxidants in FV.
• Vitamins such as C, E and
provitamin A,

• Carotenoids such as lycopene

and lutein,

• Polyphenols such as
anthocyanins and tannins have
antioxidant properties
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• The notion of ‘superfoods’ - mainly as a marketing tool for
plants considered to have high antioxidant properties.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• FV status
- benefited from an international trend towards fresh natural foods,
which are perceived to be superior to processed foods and contain
less chemical additives.

- Community perception has placed additional pressures on the

horticultural industry to retain its fresh natural image by minimising
the use of synthetic chemicals during prod. & postharvest handling.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• FV provide variety in the diet
through differences in color,
shape, taste, aroma and texture
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• The sensory appeal of FV is not confined to consumption
but also has market value.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• colour and shape diversity

- used to great effect by traders in product

displays to attract potential purchasers,

- Chefs have traditionally used FV to

enhance the attractiveness of prepared
dishes or table presentations.
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• Parsley and similar herbs

- used to adorn meat displays

throughout the Western world
Importance of fruit and vegetable
(FV) as food (cont.)
• FV carvings as table ornaments have become an art form in
countries such as Thailand
Horticultural production statistics
• FV prod. worldwide

- increasing over many years, partly

in response to a rising world
population

- also due to rising living standards

in many countries & gov’t health
promotion of FV consumption.
Horticultural production statistics
• FAO data

- total world prod. of FV inc. by 150% in the

20-year period from 1990–2010.

- Over the last decade, prod. has been

growing at about 3% per annum

- in 2011, it was 640 million tonnes of fruit

and 1 billion tonnes of vegetables.
Horticultural production statistics
(cont.)
Table 1. shows that China is responsible for the bulk of this increase.
Horticultural production statistics
(cont.)
✓ Philippine FV = multi-billion peso industry (2011 BAS data - >100 billion
pesos)

✓ Richest source of vitamins, minerals, plant proteins and phytochemicals

(food security; solution to nutritional problems)

✓ High-value commodities; generate more jobs than staple-based agr’l

activities (poverty alleviation)

✓ Major export commodities

 Horticultural production statistics
(cont.) For vegetables alone:
▪ Significantly higher incomes
▪ Up to 5x more jobs than other agricultural
activities
▪ Spurs secondary industries
▪ Commercialization of rural economy
FV – a path out of Difference in farm income (%)*
poverty Southeast Asia 20-380
Sub-saharan Africa (Kenya) 497
*Net income/household member, vegetable producing vs. non-
producing farms

Farmers selling in markets (%)

Vegetables Rice

Southeast Asia 96-99 11-23

SS Africa
88 37
(Tanzania)
Source: Weinberger and Lumpkin, 2007
Need for postharvest technology

• FV are ideally harvested at optimum

eating or visual quality.

- living biological products, deteriorate after

harvest.

- deterioration rate varies greatly between

ind’l produce, depending on their overall rate
of metabolism, but for many types of produce
this deterioration can be very rapid.
Need for postharvest technology
• For simple marketing chains where produce is transferred from
farm to end user in a short period, the rate of postharvest
deterioration is of little consequence.

• Remoteness of prod. areas from pop’n centres in both

developing & developed countries,
- proliferation of large urban centres with complex marketing systems

- growth in international trading, the time from the farm to the market
can be considerable.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Adding to this time delay between farm and end user is the
deliberate storage of certain produce to capture a better
return by extending the marketing period into a time of
shorter supply.

Supply and Demand

Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Thus, the modern marketing chain is
creating inc. demands on produce

• It has created the need for

postharvest techniques that allow
retention of quality over increasingly
long periods.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Extending the postharvest life while maintaining eating quality
requires knowledge of all factors

- otherwise, result in loss of quality.

• The creation and use of this knowledge to develop affordable

and effective technologies that minimise the rate of
deterioration is the field of scientific, technical and social
endeavour known as postharvest.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• The increased attention given to postharvest hort.

- realisation that poor handling practices after harvest can cause large
losses of produce that has already had substantial inputs of labour,
materials and capital to grow.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Informed opinion now suggests that increased emphasis
should be placed on conservation after harvest, rather than
endeavouring to further boost crop prod., as this would appear
to offer a better return for the available resources of labour,
energy, capital and the environment.

- 1/3 of losses occur after harvest

Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Postharvest improvements in developed economies

- required to meet the ever-increasing quality standards and

market expectations in a global trading environment.

• Global demand for fresh FV

- created opportunities for farmers in less developed countries,

- but improved supply chain efficiency and final produce quality

are necessary to realise the full benefit of these opportunities
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• 2 types of postharvest loss
1. physical loss
- arise from mechanical damage or pest &
disease damage.

- result in produce tissue being disrupted

to a point where it is not acceptable for
fresh consumption or processing.

- evaporation of intercellular water →

leads to a direct loss in weight (water).
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• resulting economic loss

- reduced mass of produce but can

also cause significant losses as a
whole batch of the commodity can
be rejected thru wastage of a small
proportion of ind’l items in that
batch.

- quantitative loss
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
2. Loss of quality

- due to physiological and compositional

changes that alter the appearance, taste or
texture and make produce less desirable
aesthetically to end users.

- changes may arise from the normal

metabolism of produce (e.g. senescence) or
abnormal events (e.g. chilling injury) - result of
the postharvest environment.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Economic losses

- poor quality produce at reduced prices.

• In many markets there is no demand

for this second-class produce even at
reduced prices,

- lead to a total economic loss even though

it may still be edible.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Tropics - developing countries, these losses can assume
considerable economic and social importance.

• Developed regions postharvest deterioration of fresh

produce can be just as serious, although it often occurs
due to different causes.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
Source : https://www.yara.com/knowledge-grows/how-to-reduce-food-waste/
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• Food loss
- dec. in edible food mass at the prod., post-
harvest and processing stages of the food
chain
- mostly in developing countries.

• Food waste
- discard of edible foods at the retail and
consumer levels,
- mostly in developed countries. Source : FAO
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• farms near towns and cities, poor handling practices are often
less important

- consumed before serious wastage can occur.

• In tropics, prod. of some staple commodities is seasonal,

- a need to store produce to meet req’ts during the out of season

markets.
 Need for postharvest
technology (cont.)
• In many countries, FV -
grown at locations remote
from the major centres of
pop’n.

• Millions of tonnes
transported daily over long
distances both within Source: https://www.savisas.com/blog/10-wine-farms-visit-cape-town/

countries and internationally.

Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• FV
- important items of commerce

- huge investment of resources in

transport, storage and marketing
facilities designed to maintain a
continuous supply of these
perishable commodities.

Source: https://requis.com/blog/why-investors-looking-at-supply-chain-technologies-2020/
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
Losses of hort’ l produce during postharvest and marketing
operations - acknowledged to be considerable, few studies
have accurately quantified these losses.

✓ Origin
✓ Nature of FV
✓ Complexity
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• It is not uncommon for a physical or metabolic stress to be
imposed on produce, but the visual deleterious action may not
be evident until later in the marketing chain.

• Ex. Anthracnose, CI injury

Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• For example, failure to properly cool the produce after harvest
can advance general senescence, but visible symptoms such
as loss of green colour may not occur for days or weeks.
Need for postharvest technology
(cont.)
• In addition, the visible cause of loss
may not be the actual cause

• CI of tomatoes prolonged storage at

sub-optimal temperatures, but visual
symptoms are usually secondary
mould growth on the damaged
tissues and not the chilling injury
itself.
Postharvest technology
• ultimate role - devise and successfully apply cost-effective
methods by which deterioration of produce is restricted (farm
to market)
Postharvest technology
• structure,
• composition,
• biochemistry
• physiology

• As postharvest tech.
- mainly concerned with slowing down the rate of produce metabolism
without inducing abnormal events.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Variation in

✓ bet. cultivars of the same

produce

✓ bet. maturities (tomato,

banana)

✓ growing areas or seasons.

Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Importance is the appropriate use of technology.

• The best postharvest solution many not be the most cost-

effective or optimum for every specific supply chain.

• The optimum postharvest technology must meet the

expectation of the customer at the least environmental and
economic cost.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• The principal technique in
postharvest is to control the storage
environment and handling
conditions.

• temperature control is the most PH response

important environmental factor to
manage.
Commodity
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• FV must be maintained within
the temp. range

• a lower limit of the freezing point

of plant tissues (about –2ºC to
0ºC)

• an upper limit when plant tissues

start to collapse at about 40ºC.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Other important environmental
conditions
• gases and water vapour in the
atmosphere.

• Maintenance of a high RH is
necessary to minimise water loss – a
key quality factor since wilted or
shrivelled produce has greatly reduced
market value.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• The presence of ethylene in the
atmosphere

- initiates the ripening process in

climacteric fruit and its management
around non-climacteric fruit and
vegetables is also important to inhibit
senescence.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• The use of modified and controlled atmospheres

- utilizing elevated CO2 and reduced O2 levels from the normal air
atmosphere → beneficial effect on produce metabolism
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Physiological disorders

- adverse postharvest and preharvest environmental conditions or

mineral imbalances

- can be a major problem in the handling and storage of produce.

• But the major issue for the storage and transport of fresh
fruit and vegetables is microbial decay arising from a range
of bacteria and fungi that can infect produce before and/or
after harvest.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• M.O. can be managed
• produce is not exposed to the causative factors
• using control measures which have tended to focus on the use of
synthetic chemicals.

• However, with current consumer concerns, much interest is

now on the use of natural cpds or physical treatments.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• The trade of hort’l produce across
international borders, and sometimes
within a country

- is sometimes restricted owing to the presence

of quarantine pests (such as fruit flies).

- cold treatment or fumigation - used to

disinfest the produce to kill the quarantine pest
within the produce without affecting quality.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Postharvest research

- ensure that technology is user-friendly and cost-effective to enable the

benefits of scientific knowledge to have commercial value.

• Dev’t of the refrigerated container w/c created a mobile cool storage

chamber,
• VHT → insect disinfestation (ex. mango export to China and So. Korea)
• Packaging → essential component in every supply chain (ex. lettuce &
pineapple to Japan)

- provides protection to the produce from physical damage and contamination while
meeting other marketing criteria.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Postharvest technology

- need for innovations to be environmentally sustainable both from an

economic and a community perception perspective.

• to limit the emission of GHG,

• to limit energy usage have often increased the cost of energy.

• major challenge for postharvest is to reduce “synthetic chemicals” -

generally regarded as safe (GRAS) compounds
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Once the loss of quality and wastage in the postharvest chain
is successfully managed,

- responsive to market needs in terms of consumer expectations on

quality, safety and presentation.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Operations to met consumer
• grading operations in the packinghouse for size or weight,
• removal of defects
• labelling of containers

• Eating quality and final product quality

- linked to profitability
- successful implementation requires a complete understanding of all
factors that affect produce and the market environment.
Postharvest technology (cont.)
• Thus, quality management starts in
the field and continues until
produce reaches the end user.

• Training of staff
- an integral part of quality mgt. for
ensuring predetermined quality criteria
are met
Reference
• Key TJ. Fruit and vegetables and cancer risk. Br J Cancer. 2011 Jan 4;104(1):6-11.
doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6606032. Epub 2010 Nov 30. PMID: 21119663; PMCID: PMC3039795.

• Nyanchoka, M.A.; van Stuijvenberg, M.E.; Tambe, A.B.; Zuma, M.K.; Mbhenyane, X.G. Fruit and
Vegetable Consumption Patterns and Risk of Chronic Diseases of Lifestyle among University
Students in Kenya. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 6965.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph1912696