Quality and consumer acceptability of gooseberry fruits (Ribes uvacrispa) following CA and air storage

摘要

For two successive years gooseberries, 'Achilles' were stored at 1°C in regular air (control) and under six various CA conditions (%CO_2+ %O_2: 6+18; 12+18; 18+18; 12+2; 18+2 and 24+2). Results showed that air storage is not appropriate to handle gooseberries due to a drastic reduction in fruit firmness (25% lower than CA-treatments), darkening of fruit colour, mealy texture, and lower acidity level. Low oxygen storage in combination with high CO_2 concentrations (18% or more) of gooseberries also gave bad results, mainly due to the development of off-flavours in fruits. However, results showed that increasing CO_2-concentration up to 12% did not induce the development of off-flavour. It seems that the tolerance concentration for gooseberries in respect to CO_2 lies between 12-15%, since fruits stored under 18% CO_2 combined with 18% O_2 were evaluated to be good fruits, although a slight off-flavour was noticed by panelists. Consequently, the storage of gooseberries 'Achilles' under 12-15% CO_2 combined with 18% O_2 for up to seven weeks can be recommended.