Effect of evaporative cooler environment on the visual qualities and storage life of fresh tomatoes

Abstract

Fresh tomatoes usually displayed at some retail fruit stands in Ibadan, Nigeria under ambient conditions of high temperature and low RH showed losses generally caused by one or a combination of physiological, mechanical and pathological damages. An evaporative cooler structure was built with an average temperature drop of 8.2°C from ambient condition of 33°C while the RH increase was 36.6% over an ambient 60.4%. Polyethylene film of thickness 0.050 mm was also used in combination with these conditions for the storage studies. Fresh tomatoes were stored in perforated and unperforated polyethylene film bags while others were stored unpackaged under cooler and ambient conditions. For any one treatment, the evaporative cooler samples were rated higher for visual quality attributes and marketability than those stored under ambient conditions. The storage life of unpackaged fresh tomatoes in evaporative cooler was 11 days from the 4 days storage life under ambient conditions. In combination with sealed but perforated polyethylene bags the fresh tomatoes were kept for over 18 days in the evaporative cooler and 13 days under ambient conditions. For the completely sealed samples however, the storage life of the tomatoes under ambient and evaporative cooler conditions were 6 and 8 days, respectively.