Shelf Life

Breadfruit is a highly perishable fruit that requires good post-harvesting practices to extend its shelf life for global transportation and consumption. Its high respiration rate and susceptibility to pests such as fruit flies and mealybugs make it crucial to ensure that proper post-harvesting methods are utilized. Several methods have been explored in optimizing post-harvesting of breadfruit. Heat treatment using water and air as a disinfection step against pests for breadfruit has shown promising results, without negatively impacting the quality of breadfruit. There are other forms of traditional post-harvest processing recommendations with regards to maturity and quality indices, temperature and controlled atmospheric conditions, and potential pathological and physical disorders. These authors found that storage of harvested breadfruit 13 ± 1°C with a relative humidity of 85–95% and minimal exposure to ethylene prolongs the shelf-life of breadfruit. The novel usage of semipermeable coating was explored by Worrell et al. who reported reduced fruit softening, albeit off-odors and greater discoloration of the flesh of breadfruit. Another study showed that controlled atmospheric storage in 5% CO2 and 5% O2 at 16°C of breadfruit reduced skin discoloration significantly and extended shelf-life of breadfruit to 25 days compared to 8 days of untreated breadfruit. These studies that have been done are vital steps that the food industries have to first understand in order to optimize the quality of breadfruit, determine its optimal storage condition and ultimately extend its shelf life.