Natural products are more preferred by consumers now-a-days over the synthetic ones. Therefore a natural fruit\ncoating was developed from natural ingredients (shellac, rosin, gum arabic, water and ethanol from sugar industry) without\nammonia or morphine as an alternative to the synthetic coatings. So this research was devised to compare the effects of this\nnewly developed natural fruit coating (with 9% total solids) with those of synthetic one (polyethylene based ammonia\ncontaining wax with 21% total solids) on the postharvest quality of kinnow (Citrus reticulata Blanco) mandarins. The kinnow\nmandarins were either coated with natural or synthetic fruit coatings or were left uncoated and stored at 5 2�°C with 85-90%\nrelative humidity for 63 days with five replications for each treatment. The results showed that both fruit coatings\nsignificantly (p<0.05) delayed changes in physiological loss in weight, firmness, ascorbic acid and overall sensory quality\nduring the storage period as compared to uncoated fruits, while non-significant (p>0.05) changes in total soluble solids and\nfruit acidity were recorded for all the treatments. Furthermore the difference between natural and synthetic fruit coatings was\nnon-significant (p>0.05). Therefore, it could be suggested that the natural fruit coating is a good alternative of the synthetic\nfruit coating.
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