Understanding the physiological response of fresh-cut cauliflower for developing a suitable packaging system

Wilting and decay are the general postharvest problems of fresh-cut cauliflower during marketing. The objectives of this study were; (i) to investigate the product physiological responses on transpiration and respiration rates (TR and RR) under different storage temperatures (1, 5, 10 and 15 °C) and relatively humidity (RH) (60, 76, 86 and 96%), in order to design packages; and, (ii) to evaluate the impact of packaging design (using PeakFresh (PF), poly-propylene (PP), and NatureFlex (NF)) on the quality of fresh-cut cauliflower at 5 °C for 12 days. Based on the physiological responses, two packages were designed; package-1 (20NF; 20% NF + 80% PP) and package-2 (40NF; 40% NF + 60% PP), while PF (100% PF) and PP (100% PP) served as control. Mathematical model adequately predicted respiration rates as a function of storage time and fitted to the experimental data (R2 = 0.98). The RR of fresh-cut cauliflower was significantly higher than that of the uncut cauliflower and was within the range of 120 and 77.5 mg/kg.h at 5 °C for fresh-cut and uncut cauliflower, respectively. Transpiration rate for fresh-cut cauliflower was lowest at 96% RH across all storage temperatures (p ≤ 0.05). Optimal package was achieved as a function of fresh-cut cauliflower physiological responses. At the end of storage day 12 at 5 °C, optimized 20NF package had the best performance compared to other packages; gas composition was within the range of 5% O2 and 10% CO2, with 0% in-package water vapour condensation but at expense of 7% weight loss.