article · Applied Food Research
Edible coatings made from locally sourced materials can help retain tomato quality during storage. A comparative evaluation examined beeswax, shea butter, and cassava starch coatings on fresh tomato fruits stored at 20 degrees Celsius and 80 to 90 percent relative humidity for 20 days. Assessments covered antioxidant properties, total phenolic content, polyphenol oxidase enzyme activity, organoleptic traits, weight loss, firmness, and shelf life. Tomatoes coated with beeswax performed consistently better than those treated with shea butter or cassava starch. Beeswax preserved antioxidant activity, phenolic content, and sensory quality while resisting enzyme degradation. It also delayed fruit ripening, slowed weight loss, maintained fruit firmness, and prolonged storage duration. These outcomes show that beeswax coating serves as an effective postharvest approach for extending tomato shelf life and maintaining fruit freshness during storage.
Fresh tomatoes spoil quickly after harvest, leading to significant postharvest losses and reduced nutritional quality. Identifying natural, locally sourced edible coatings such as beeswax helps maintain physical firmness, taste, and vital antioxidant compounds during storage. This provides a practical postharvest strategy to reduce food waste, extend fruit storage life, and retain fresh produce quality under controlled temperature and humidity conditions.
This applied and tested postharvest method could enable tomato growers, food distributors, and produce handlers to protect fresh crop value. The use of locally produced beeswax coatings offers a practical treatment to prolong shelf life and maintain marketable quality during storage. As laboratory-tested research, taking this towards market deployment would require practical application trials in commercial packhouse operations and validation under varying transport conditions.
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This study explored the effect of different locally produced edible coating material, bee wax (BW), shea butter (SB) and cassava starch (CS) coatings on the physical and chemical properties of tomato fruits stored at 20 °C and relative humidity of 80 – 90% for 20 days. The physiochemical properties and quality retention of coated tomato fruits were assessed for antioxidant properties (ABTS and DPPH), total phenolic content (TPC), enzyme activity (PPO), organoleptic properties, weight loss, firmness, and shelf-life of the fruits. Tomato fruits treated with Bee wax (BW) preserve the antioxidant activity, total phenolic content (TPC), organoleptic properties and resisted enzymes activities compared to the SB and CS. The results also suggest that bee wax (BW) treatment delayed ripening, weight loss, firmness, and extended the storage life of fruits compared to the SB and CS. Taking into consideration of the above physical and chemical properties, BW treatment will be a good postharvest technology for retaining the quality and extending the shelf life of fresh tomato fruits. The current findings will make available more information for selecting edible coatings for tomato storage.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.afres.2022.100041
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