Quality Change of Packaged Pears for Export due to Vibration Stress during Transportation

Quality Change of Packaged Pears for Export due to Vibration Stress during Transportation

The characteristics of vibrational stress (shock and vibration) during transport and the possibility of damage to the packaged pears were investigated. And this study was conducted to analyze how environmental conditions during transportation affect quality factors such as oxygen (O₂) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations, weight loss rate, ethylene production, soluble solids content (SSC), and firmness (bioyield strength) of packaged pears for exporting. Pears with or without vibration stress were stored for 30 days at low temperatures (5 ± 0.8℃, 80 ± 5% relative humidity). Statistically significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) between pears with and without vibrational stress for oxygen concentration (O₂; 11.8 ± 1.5% and 16.1 ± 2.1%; initial 20.9 ± 1.4%), carbon dioxide (CO₂; 25.8 ± 3.2% and 19.1 ± 02.9%, initial 1.1 ± 0.2%) and ethylene (72.3 ± 5.2 µLL-1 and 65.1 ± 4.8 µLL-1, initial 18.3 ± 2.5 µLL-1) in the headspace of the gas collection container after 30 days storage. Significant differences also for pears with and without vibrational stress in relation to soluble solids content (16.2 ± 1.2% and 17.1 ± 1.4%, initial 13.8 ± 0.8% and 14.1 ± 0.9%, respectively), weight loss (6.4 ± 0.7 g day^-1 and 5.0 ± 0.6 g day^-1), firmness (38.23 ± 7.2 kPa and 70.92 ± 13.2 kPa; initial 249.87 ± 14.8 kPa and 254.29 ± 10.7 kPa) after 30days storage. Vibration stress accelerated pear quality deterioration during storage, resulting in increased weight loss, soluble solids content, headspace CO₂ and ethylene production, and reduced hardness and headspace O₂.