Effect of Edible Coating and Packaging on Physiological and Sensory Attributes of Litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) Fruits

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of edible coating and packaging material on physiological and sensory quality of litchi fruits. For this, mature litchi fruits were harvested from HRC, Patharchatta and the selected fruits were treated with Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum and Methyl cellulose (low viscosity and high viscosity)as edible coating at different concentration (0.5%, 1.0%, 2.0%, 2.5%) and stored at 4 ± 1 °C under 90 ± 5% RH. The results revealed that edible coating significantly influenced the fruit quality. The physiological loss in fruit weight, shrinkage in fruit length and breadth, volume and sensory characteristics was significantly improved with 0.15% guar gum along with packaging in perforated brown paper bag.