Strategy and Software Application of Fresh Produce Package Design to Attain Optimal Modified Atmosphere

Abstract

Modified atmosphere packaging of fresh produce relies on the attainment of desired gas concentration inside the package resulting from product respiration and package’s gas transfer. Systematic package design method to achieve the target modified atmosphere was developed and constructed as software in terms of selecting the most appropriate film, microperforations, and/or CO 2 scavenger. It incorporates modeling and/or database construction on the produce respiration, gas transfer across the plastic film and microperforation, and CO 2 absorption by the scavenger. The optimization algorithm first selects the packaging film and/or microperforations to have the target O 2 concentration in response to the respiration and then tunes the CO 2 concentration by CO 2 absorber when it goes above its tolerance limit. The optimization method tested for green pepper, strawberry, and king oyster mushroom packages was shown to be effective to design the package and the results obtained were consistent with literature work and experimental atmosphere.