Technological innovations enhance postharvest fresh food resilience from a supply chain perspective

Abstract

Fresh food is rich in nutrients but is usually seasonal, perishable, and challenging to store without degradation of quality. The inherent limitations of various preservation technologies can result in losses in all stages of the supply chain. As consumers of fresh foods have become more health-conscious, new technologies for intelligent, energy-efficient, and nondestructive preservation and processing have emerged as a research priority in recent years. This review aims to summarize the quality change characteristics of postharvest fruits, vegetables, meats, and aquatic products. It critically analyzes research progress and applications of various emerging technologies, which include: the application of high-voltage electric field, magnetic field, electromagnetic field, plasma, electrolytic water, nanotechnology, modified atmosphere packaging, and composite bio-coated film preservation technologies. An evaluation is presented of the benefits and drawbacks of these technologies, as well as future development trends. Moreover, this review provides guidance for design of the food supply chain to take advantage of various technologies used to process food, reduce losses and waste of fresh food, and this improve the overall resilience of the supply chain.

Keywords:

• Fresh food
• preservation
• supply chain
• processing technologies

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial supports from the National Key R&D Program of China (No.2022YFD2100601), Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory Project of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (No. FMZ202003), National First-Class Discipline Program of Food Science and Technology (No. JUFSTR20180205), all of which enabled us to carry out this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.