Abstract:
Perishable nature of fresh fruits and vegetables causes
to reduce their shelf-life; hence post-harvest losses are becoming
a burning problem. Storing under control conditions may solve
the problem, but it can’t be practiced throughout food chain. The
application of synthetic coating on fresh products became popular
however, there are limitations due to food safety measures. Introducing edible coatings to improve the shel-flife of fresh products has
become a new approach. Lime fruit is one of the highly demanded
fruits and is used for various food processing applications. This
study was carried out to develop a new edible coating to enhance
the shelf-life of fresh lime using flour of “kithul” tree (Caryota
urens) which has gelatinizing properties. Two concentrations (1%
and 3%) of “kithul” flour were used. The coatings were equally
applied on fruit surfaces except for the control. All samples were
stored in both ambient (29 oC and 70% RH) and controlled (13 oC
and 79% RH) storage conditions. Percentages of weight loss, peel
colour changers, peel browning, disease, visual quality rating, total
soluble solids, pH, and titratable acidity were recorded at four days
interval in ambient storage and at seven days interval in temperaturecontrolled storage. According to the results, lime fruits treated with
1% kithul flour coating were recorded the longest shelf life of 12
days under ambient storage and 42 days under controlled storage.
Therefore, this study highlights that 1% kithul flour formula can be
introduced as an edible coating to prolong the shelf-life of fresh
lime.
