Quality and shelf life of fresh-cut peki stored under modified atmosphere

The aim of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of the use of passive and active modified atmosphere on the maintenance of quality and prolongation of the shelf life of fresh-cut peki fruit stored at 5 degrees C, for 12 days, through physiological, physical, physico-chemistry and chemistry evaluations. Peki fruit were washed with stream water and sanitized with sodium hypochlorite 200 and 100 mg.L-1, for 15 and 5 minutes, before and after peeling, respectively. Peki fruit were packed into rigid propylene package (PP): with rigid cover of same polymer; covered with polyvinyl chloride film (PVC) 0,014 mm; passive and actively (3,2% O-2 + 9,2% CO2) and (7,7% O-2 + 3,9% CO2) sealed with polyethylene (PE) + PP film 0,060 mm. One concluded that rigid packages sealed passive and actively with film of PE + PP 0,060 mm are not recommended to fresh-cut peki fruit condition, due to the fact of the level of O-2 to be next to 0% in the third day of storage, what compromises its quality. The rigid packages of polypropylene with cover of same polymer and those covered with PVC film are the most suitable to fresh-cut peki fruit, since they do not promote anaerobiosis conditions and do not change expressively their physical, physical-chemical and chemical characteristics during 12 days of storage at 5 +/- 1 degrees C and RH 90 +/- 5%.