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This study investigated the sorption and residues of phosphine in fruits and vegetables relevant for export. Sorption patterns varied among the commodities: mango exhibited a constant sorption range of 10–12%, bitter gourd displayed a distinct pattern with peak sorption of 20% at 8 hours, and chilli demonstrated a higher range of sorption percentage, peaking at 60% at 8 hours. ANOVA (F (4,8) = 0.449, p = 0.771) and regression (F (1,11) = 0.851, p = 0.376) analysis revealed a non-significant relationship between the sorption percentage and exposure period. Residue analysis using Gas Chromatography with FPD detector revealed relatively low levels of phosphine residues in mango (0.009–0.01 µL/L), negligible traces in chilli samples, residues within the maximum residue limit (MRL) range for bitter gourd after 4–6 hours of aeration. Detecting phosphine residues within acceptable limits underscores the significance of post-fumigation protocols to meet stringent food safety standards, thereby safeguarding product integrity for global trade. Therefore, phosphine fumigation could serve as a viable alternative to methyl bromide fumigation for quarantine treatment of perishables as it doesn’t leave detectable toxic residues in produce following aeration and has no role in ozone depletion thus making it a more sustainable solution for international trade in fresh produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed work considers two different scenarios of a finite period complete-lockdown situation for two warehouse perishable inventory systems. The first scenario assumed the enforcement and ease of lockdown when the owned warehouse is being vacated. The latter studied the scenario using lockdown enforcement during the inventory dispatch from the owned warehouse and relieved as the items are taken from the rented warehouse. These deterministic models consider a time-dependent linear demand rate and two parameters Weibull distributed deterioration rate. The linearly increasing demand function decreases by a finite volume as the lockdown is imposed and increases suddenly whenever the lockdown is relaxed. Both of the models have been formulated to minimise the total system cost. Further, the behaviour of the models has been examined using sensitivity analysis. Considering the realistic scenarios makes the models practicable to implement in a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the concerns surrounding the adverse effects of fumigants on the quality of treated perishables. Fumigation is a widely used strategy in the food industry, particularly for exporters, to control insect pests in food commodities under storage. As global trade in perishables continues to expand, the balance between effective fumigation for pest control and preserving product quality becomes increasingly crucial. The selection of an appropriate fumigant is important for a successful export, as the chemical components present in the commodity can interact with the fumigant, leading to changes in flavour, taste, odour, nutritional value, and processing capabilities. Understanding these effects is crucial for optimizing fumigation strategies while maintaining the quality and safety of food commodities. This review provides an overview of the various fumigants used worldwide for fruits and vegetables and evaluates their impact on the quality of treated perishable commodities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chains with either perishables or non-perishables have been well-studied as evidenced through extant published literature. Among these studies, very few consider supply chains with both perishable and non-perishable products. Since the early 2000s, RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) tags have been increasingly used in supply chains that deal with perishables as well as non-perishables. While there is a reasonably large amount of published literature on RFID use in supply chains, we are unaware of any that considers the dynamics of RFID-generated information in supply chains that simultaneously involve perishables substitutable by non-perishables in retail environments. We attempt to address this void. We consider the relative benefits of sensor-enabled RFID tag use in supply chains that simultaneously contain perishables substitutable by non-perishables. We also derive expressions for conditions on their dynamics through specific consideration of their pre-determined and actual expiry dates. We operationalize our analysis from the perspective of retailers and customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perishable artifacts are invaluable tools for reconstructing past lifeways of hunter-gatherers, and when preserved in arid settings, they can inform on dynamic interactions between communities and the environment. Many such materials were recovered from early archaeological surveys in Utah and Nevada but were largely excluded from contemporary analyses because of small sample sizes, their fragmentary nature, and insecure proveniences. This synchronic reanalysis of cordage and coiled basketry from 10 late Holocene sites in the Great Salt Lake Desert utilizes newer approaches to perishables analysis so as to collect data more conducive to statistical comparisons of subsistence and craft traditions absent from earlier Great Basin studies. Regional trends of conformity of fine cordage contrasted with a diversity of basketry manufacture suggest contemporaneous social stressors directing the production of materials and two potentially gendered subclasses of utilitarian objects. Feminine and masculine perishable crafts in the Bonneville Basin follow separate manufacturing traditions, observable despite small sample sizes and poor dating of these curated collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A retailer places orders periodically for items that are shipped by a wholesaler. Items that are not sold perish randomly and independently of one another, with the perish probability depending on the age class. We consider a first‐in‐first‐out policy for depleting items. We model this problem as a Markov decision process with stochastic demand, unit holding, outdating and ordering costs, plus unit penalty costs for lost sales. We prove convexity for the penultimate period and show convexity may not hold any earlier. A dynamic program can be solved optimally for small instances. We introduce both a one‐stage‐lookahead heuristic and a heuristic which is a combination of two existing standard approaches, the newsvendor and periodic review models. For simulated data, we compare these heuristics to the optimal solution for small problem instances and to further lookahead policies for larger problem instances. We show that the two new heuristics achieve results close to optimal. Our numerical study, which includes real data from a large European retail chain, highlights that products perishing independently from each other strongly affect model behavior compared to existing approaches from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic packaging for fresh horticultural produce has many advantages but generates plastic waste and ecological alternatives are required. Edible coatings can retard many processes related to loss of quality. Hydrophobic lipid-based coatings are preferably applied for fresh fruits and vegetables. The approval of such coatings for products with edible peels in EU is increasingly under discussion. However, investigations on the efficiency of various edible coatings on soft-skinned fruit and vegetables are rare and it is currently unclear whether the consumer will accept them. Therefore, this study investigates (1) important characteristics of a lipid-based coating and (2) its ability to maintain the post-harvest quality of fresh cucumbers. This was evaluated by a comparative storage test under common suboptimal retail conditions (20 °C; 65% RH). The study also evaluates (3) the general perception of consumers about and their acceptance of the application of edible coatings on fresh fruit and vegetables with edible peels. The investigated coating was able to drastically reduce water loss (54–68%) and fruit respiration (approx. 33%) of fresh cucumber. The reduction of tissue stiffness was delayed by 2 days, thus, prolonged shelf life. Majority of consumer (77%) endorse the application of edible coatings as an alternative to plastic packaging, but emphasized important requirements for them.

California is one of the largest producers of perishable produce in the world. This sector supports a large transportation industry that handles the exports of these goods. Starting from the 1950’s, the export of produce has gradually shifted modes from rail to truck. This project builds on the initial work from the “Rail and the California Economy” project by examining the potential of shifting the movement of perishable produce in California from truck to rail. The final report provides a review of the state of the California rail system in terms of perishable produce transport and where there have been recent increases in rail modal share; analyzes and discusses the societal costs of trucking; outlines how PPPs can relate to rail and provides examples of rail PPP in California such as the highly successful Colton Crossing project; and proposes a location in Monterey County where government support through a PPP could result in lasting beneficial changes. In summary, although rail is currently a very small player in the transport of California perishable produce exports, increasing its modal share would be beneficial to the citizens of the state by reducing a number of negative externalities. Public entities should consider different ways, such as PPP, to encourage this growth. In areas where the private sector has already invested significant moneys, some modal shifts for certain crops have already occurred.

Mexico produces 30 790.7 t per year of soursop fruits (FG), Nayarit contributes 75.4 %. The FG are perishable, it is proposed to develop edible coatings (RC). The objective was to evaluate CR based on starch (2 %) of FG (2 % w/v) in FG stored at 15 ± 2 °C and 22 ± 2 °C. Weight loss PP (%), firmness F (N), titratable acidity AT (%), total soluble solids TSS (°Brix) and color (L*C*H) were evaluated. Treatment design: FG without CR at 22 ± 2 °C for 8 d (T1), FG with CR at 22 ± 2 °C for 10 d (T2) and FG without CR (T3) and FG with CR at 15 ± 2 °C for 4 d and subsequently transferred to 22 ± 2 °C for 8 d (T4), RH 90%. The PP was 10.3 (T1) and 6.1(T2), F of 45.9 (T1) and 26.2 (T2), at the end of storage AT of 0.94 (T1) and 0.56 (T2) and SST of 15.8 (T1) and 15.5 (T2). At T3 and T4, PP was 10.5 and 10.4, respectively, F was 9.6 (T3, 8 d) and 19 (T4, 10 d), AT was 0.26 (T3) and 0.27 (T4), SST was 12.2 (T3) and 11.4 (T4) at the end of storage. The fruits of T4 presented a green color with low luminosity (L: 43.9 C: 15.5 H: 105) at the end of storage. The fruits of T2 presented less loss of weight and firmness, high concentration of TSS at 4 d of storage. The coating does not affect the fruits stored in both storage conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perishable artifacts are rare finds in the Northwest Plains and the adjacent Rocky Mountains and any addition to the inventory makes a significant contribution. In the case of perishable objects from Last Canyon Cave in southern Montana, this is particularly true as one of the objects is unique to the region, a sandal. In this paper we describe the two items from Last Canyon, discuss their regional occurrence, and suggest the origin of the technology outside of the Northwest Plains/Rocky Mountains [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Availability of storage and processing facilities that work off-the-grid is crucial to agrarian economies for meeting sustainable development goals. We report a novel biomass-gasification-powered climate control unit (CCU) with independently controlled temperature and humidity, which enables the system to maintain a wide range of climatic conditions for storage, processing and farming of perishables. The developed all-season CCU has a temperature control subsystem driven by a novel biomass gasification-based hot water generator (heating capacity – 22 kW), which also powers an adsorption refrigerator (cooling capacity – 11 kW). The heat content of the hot flue gas (≈ 250 °C) from the exhaust of gasification-based hot water generator is recovered using flue gas-to-air heat exchanger and utilized to regenerate (3.6 kW) the desiccant wheel thus enabling an off-the-grid humidity control. Auxiliary components such as pumps, blowers, control panels, and valves are operated in an off-the-grid manner using solar photovoltaic panels (≈ 1.5 kWe) backed by storage batteries. An algorithm is devised to demonstrate autonomous and independent control of temperature and relative humidity over a wide range of psychrometric conditions (0–50 °C and 15–90 % RH). We also present the cost analysis and identify the immediate challenges facing the developed system. The waste-to-energy concept of high lignin-based biomass such as forest wood, agricultural residue demonstrated herein lays the foundation for a proper biomass utilization besides empowering farmers with a much-needed technology towards sustainable growth. • All-season off-the-grid climate control unit for perishables developed. • Novel biomass gasification-based hot water generator powers the system. • Independent control of temperature (0–50 °C) and humidity (15–90 %) attained. • Cost and auxiliary analysis reported to justify the viability of the system. • Other application includes industrial processing and indoor farming units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fresh-cut produce like lettuce may contain a very high microbial load, including human pathogens. Therefore, the need for antimicrobial agents at post-harvest stages to mitigate microbial cross-contamination and growth is evident. Sanitation based on non-thermal plasma (NTP) reveals innovative food processing possibilities by application at different points along the food chain, for production, modification, and preservation, as well as in packaging of plant- and animal-based food. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the applicability of plasma-treated water (PTW) as antimicrobial process water additives for washing in fresh-cut lettuce processing. Antibacterial activities of PTW the natural occurring microflora of lettuce were examined. Different process variants of PTW application inside the washing process were investigated. Fresh-cut lettuce were investigated regarding microbiological safety and food quality. Samples were analyzed for antimicrobial and metabolic activity as well as metabolic vitality to prove food safety. The investigations for food quality included color and texture analyses and nitrate concentration detection in fresh tissue as well as microscopic measurements by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) for tissue surface structure and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for cell organelle investigations. The application of PTW allowed up to 5 log10 cycle reduction, depending on the process variant and scale (lab and pilot scale). The increase of antimicrobial activity was accompanied by a reduction of metabolic activity, but not consequently by a decrease in metabolic vitality. Food quality was not affected by the use of PTW in the washing process of the fresh-cut lettuce. The promising results in color and texture were supported by the results of the microscopic assays. These promising results may lead to an industrial application of PTW as process water additive in fresh-cut produce processing to reduce the microbial load on the food surface and in addition in the process water or on food processing surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an inventory management model for perishables, depletion due to interacting with the demand is of importance, but also, damage to products is a relevant variable. This article considers that demand and sales phenomena do not always go hand-in-hand. The demand process relates to the willingness to acquire products in good condition, giving the customer the power to evaluate the quality of the product before an effective purchase takes place. We also considered the cost of disposing of unsold units, besides the conventional costs for storage and procurement. We then proposed a mathematical model to derive the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) under specific conditions, in order to minimize the expected management cost of perishables, assuming constant demand and linearly decreasing purchase probability during the product life cycle. We proposed several random instances and validate the mathematical model using simulation. We then found the optimal parameters for the inventory policy using a third-order numerical approximation. Last, we developed a sensitivity analysis over the product life cycle to prove that the proposed model approximates to a traditional EOQ model for perishables when life cycle is sufficiently large.

As perishable products are worthless at end-of-life, for a given supply prices are often dynamically adjusted to ensure inventory is exhausted at end-of-life. When consumers expect such price reductions, they may strategically time their purchases. These two conditions pose a complex problem for pricing. Given inventory, cost of production is sunk. Thus, the dynamic path for prices must be set to maximize revenues with an eye on inventory take-down as well as to discourage strategic behavior. This problem is further challenged when prices and the extent of consumer strategic behavior are uncertain. This paper presents an approach for pricing a set of perishable products that are highly substitutable, yet differentiated to target a set of consumer segments. We propose and analyze a price assurance scheme as a solution to the strategic behavior of consumers and price uncertainty. We present and evaluate our price assurance approach by comparing two price assurance schemes: i) ex-post price assurance, and ii) ex-ante price assurance to risk neutral dynamic pricing without regard for consumer strategic behavior. These approaches have not to our knowledge been previously considered in our setting of perishables, uncertain consumer strategic behavior, and price uncertainty. Our numerical experiments show that our robust optimization model prevents loss when a firm encounters the worst-case demand and outperforms a risk neutral pricing model . Comparison across our different pricing schemes provides conditions under which particular schemes may dominate others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the production of perishable products such as dairy, meat or bakery goods, the consideration of shelf life in production planning is of particular importance. Retail customers with relatively low inventory turns can benefit significantly from longer product shelf life as wastage and out-of-stock rates decrease. However, in today's production planning and control systems, shelf-life issues with regard to specific products or customers are only seldom accounted for. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to develop Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) models that integrate shelf-life issues into production planning and scheduling. The research is based on an industrial case study of yoghurt production. Relying on the principle of block planning, three different MILP models for weekly production planning are presented that apply a combination of a discrete and continuous representation of time. Overnight production and, hence, the necessity for identifying two different shelf-life values for the same production lot is included in the model formulation. Numerical experiments show that near-optimal solutions can be obtained within reasonable computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decontamination and sanitation methods currently used are mainly antimicrobial ineffective, generate high costs with a high consumption of water and chemicals (additives). As an alternative, non-thermal plasma at atmospheric pressure could be a versatile tool. Therefore, a pilot-scaled set-up based on a microwave-plasma source that generates plasma processed air (PPA), a gaseous mixture which contains manifold RNS-based chemical compounds gaining, among others, the antimicrobial effectivity of that mixture. The PPA was introduced to a water-processing device (WPD) to enrich tap water. By this way, plasma processed tap water (PPtW), which can be applied for the decontamination of packaging material, fresh produce and processing equipment, was generated. This is a new and innovative method for the generation of antimicrobial active plasma processed water. In our experiments, the native contamination of fresh-cut lettuce treated with PPtW in a common washing process and the microbial load of the washing water itself was investigated. Different treatment scenarios showed the influence of PPtW to the fresh-cut lettuce and the washing water as well as the hygienic problems of recontamination during the washing process. The characteristics of plasma and its generated cocktail of long living chemical compounds in air and in water leading to a significant bacterial inactivation and offering a wide range of possible applications. The safety, quality and shelf life of freshly cut vegetables greatly depend on the microbial load, especially with phyto and human pathogens, of the produce as well as the hygienic design of production device and good handling and production practice. This study shows that the application of PPW/PPtW, as a promising non-thermal sanitation technology, enables the inactivation of native contamination on fresh-cut lettuce in industrial relevant level. It further describes the impact of the necessity of hygienic environment during production to avoid cross- and re-contamination. The results contribute to the understanding and product-specificity of PPW-induced effects on safety, quality and shelf life of fresh cut lettuce and could be a basis for a possible industrial implementation and complement of common technologies. • Pilot-plant scale fresh-cut lettuce rinsing/washing unit based on plasma technology • PPW as 'on demand' antimicrobial agent based on non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma technology • Technical trial with 45 kg fresh-cut lettuce and ~ 1.500 l of plasma generated disinfectant • Enhancement of microbial reduction up to 2 lg cycles in a single washing stage • Advantages of PPW offer a wide range of possible uses for sanitation in food industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]