Recent advances in high relative humidity strategy for preservation of postharvest fruits and vegetables: A comprehensive review

Postharvest water loss is a major factor resulting in quality deterioration and physiology disorders of fruits and vegetables, which is effectively inhibited by high relative humidity (RH) storage. High RH storage could retain quality attributes and stress tolerance, also influence physiological metabolisms and cellular level responses of postharvest horticultural products, involving cell ultrastructure integrity, degradation of bioactive compounds, antioxidant response, respiration processes, ripening and senescence. In addition, challenges for the implementation of high RH strategies in the preservation of fresh produces are receiving increasing attention. This review summarizes the advance of high RH storage in controlling quality deterioration and biochemical mechanisms. Furthermore, the major approaches applied to form high RH conditions are also detailed. The obtained information is expected to provide a further understanding and future research directions for application of high RH in preservation of fruits and vegetables.