NE179: Technology and Principles for Assessing and Retaining Postharvest Quality of Fruits and Vegetables
Statement of Issues and Justification
The U.S. fruit and vegetable industry generates over $6 billion in income annually. Producers are experiencing tough competition from global competitors with high quality standards and cheap labor pools. Retaining post harvest quality of fruits and vegetables is necessary to compete in the new global economy. The system for distributing fruits and vegetables throughout the United States and the world is well developed. Perishable fruits and vegetables can be delivered in a timely manner to retail markets throughout the world. The producers and packers need to handle high volumes in order to satisfy the markets demands. Therefore, producers, packers, and processors need to utilize devices that can give rapid, accurate, and objective quality measurements.Significant progress has been made towards developing sensors to measure both internal and external quality parameters. In much of the previous work with sensors, tests have been performed while the fruit or vegetable is stationary and there have been no time limitations imposed on the measurement. The next challenge in this area is to develop real-time grading lines and inspection stations that can function at the speed required by the industry.
The development of new sensor technologies, firmness detectors, volatile odor sensors, object imaging, neural networks and fuzzy logic, and advanced classifying techniques will enable rapid and economical on-line implementation. The economic benefits of using inputs from several sensors are significant considering the price premiums that are placed on consistent, superior quality in the market place.
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