Quality and consumer acceptability of gooseberry fruits (Ribes uvacrispa) following CA and air storage

Abstract

For two successive years gooseberries, ‘Achilles’ were stored at 1°C in regular air (control) and under six various CA conditions (%CO2+ %O2: 6+18; 12+18; 18+18; 12+2; 18+2 and 24+2). Results showed that air storage is not appropriate to handle gooseberries due to a drastic reduction in fruit firmness (25% lower than CA-treatments), darkening of fruit colour, mealy texture, and lower acidity level. Low oxygen storage in combination with high CO2 concentrations (18% or more) of gooseberries also gave bad results, mainly due to the development of off-flavours in fruits. However, results showed that increasing CO2-concentration up to 12% did not induce the development of off-flavour. It seems that the tolerance concentration for gooseberries in respect to CO2 lies between 12-15%, since fruits stored under 18% CO2 combined with 18% O2 were evaluated to be good fruits, although a slight off-flavour was noticed by panelists. Consequently, the storage of gooseberries ‘Achilles’ under 12-15% CO2 combined with 18% O2 for up to seven weeks can be recommended