Factors affecting the quality of fresh-cut sweet cherry

Sweet cherries are a very perishable commodity with a short shelf life in conventional cold storage. Sweet cherries is an important fruit production in Italy. Their shelf life is shortened by loss of firmness, rot susceptibility, discoloration and desiccation of the stem. Postharvest treatments providing even a short extension of shelf-life would have an effect on the marketing of fresh cherries. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) have been successfully applied in order to prolong the shelf-life of sweet cherries. High CO2 concentrations maintain fruit brightness, preserve acidity and firmness and extend storage life. For these reasons, the aim of this work was to determine the potential of packaging as a practical technique for ready to eat sweet cherry. Hand harvested Giulietta was use to verify the possibility to employ cherries for ready to eat production. Samples was stored for a short period (10 days), to simulate the shelf-life of ready to eat product. The followed parameters were evaluated: soluble solids content (°Brix), titratable acidity (meq/l), colour (CIELAB), texture (Durofel Index), total anthocyanin content (mg of cyanidin-3-glucoside 100 g -1 product) and antioxidant capacity (mmol Fe 2 kg-1 product). The result show that Giulietta can be suitable to be used to ready to eat produce: high texture and titratable acidity value was obtained after 10 days of storage.