? Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4200, Porto, Portugal
? Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
Abstract:
‘Sweet Charlie’ strawberries were wrapped with PVC polymeric film, and forced-air precooled after delays of 0, 6 or 8 hours at 30 °C to study the effect of delaying precooling on physical and chemical quality characteristics of the strawberry. Non-wrapped fruits were used as a control. Evaluations were performed after storage for one week at 1 °C plus one day at 20 °C. Delaying the precooling resulted in less attractive fruits and loss of quality characteristics. Wrapped strawberries maintained better appearance and quality than nonwrapped berries.