Overall quality of ready-to-eat pomegranate arils processed from cold stored fruit

• Ready-to-eat arils quality of fresh or stored ‘Primosole’ pomegranates was evaluated.
• After 60 days of storage most fruit were un-marketable.
• Arils quality was slightly affected by storage time of whole fruit.
• Quality was slightly affected by the shelf-life length of the ready-to-eat product.
• Un-marketable fruit for external damages can still be used for ready-to-eat arils.

The overall quality, titratable acidity, total solid soluble, total polyphenol, anthocyanin content, antioxidant activity, sugar content and juice color of ready-to-eat arils of ‘Primosole’ pomegranate processed at harvest and after 30 or 60 days of storage of whole fruit at 5 °C and 90% RH was assessed. Minimally processed arils were packaged in polypropylene trays (150 g each), wrapped with a polypropylene film to generate a passive modified atmosphere and stored at 5 °C and 90% RH for 10 days. In-package CO2 was lower for those arils obtained from fruit with longer storage time while O2 concentrations increased. Slight or not significant changes were detected in chemical and physical parameters during the 10 days of shelf-life of packaged arils, regardless the storage time of whole fruit, even when physiological disorders of the peel significantly reduced the commercial value of whole fruit along storage. Similarly, changes in sensory analysis were negligible and did not affect the eating quality.