High pressure processing and storage of blueberries: effect on fruit hardness

ABSTRACT

Non-thermal preservation technologies such as high pressure processing (HPP) have low impact in original fruit flavours. The objective of this study was to process the whole blueberries by HPP and investigate the effect on its hardness after processing and during 7 and 28 days storage. Whole blueberry immersed in water was the best packaging option. The blueberries submitted to 200 and 600 MPa for 5–60 min and were stored at 3°C for 1 week. In another experiment, HPP blueberries (200 and 600 MPa for 10 min) were stored for 28 days. No difference in sensorial texture was observed between HPP and fresh unprocessed blueberry, although the instrumental hardness decreased significantly. Hardness was not affected by the processing time and was similar just after HPP and one-week storage. The hardness of HPP-processed blueberries was kept along 28 days storage without considerable weight loss as opposed to fresh fruits which collapsed.

KEYWORDS:

• High hydrostatic pressure
• texture
• firmness
• sensory
• rabbiteye blueberry

Acknowledgments

Scholarship is provided to Tiago Scheidt by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) from Brazil through the exchange program ‘Science without borders’. The authors thank the technicians Peter Buchanan and Allan Clendinning for their help throughout this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Filipa V. M. Silva http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4700-2938

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil.