An Innovative Smart Device to Control Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) of Fruit and Vegetables

This paper describes an innovative smart device (BLOW®) for controlling gaseous exchanges between the inside and outside atmosphere of a sealed container during storage of solid or liquid food produce. The smart device has been tested in preliminary trials carried out on rocket leaves (Eruca sativa), under two modified atmospheres (MAP) (5% O2 and 5% CO2 for MAP A and 5% O2 and 10% CO2 for MAP B) and stored at low temperature (4°C +/- 1°C), in order to evaluate the shelf-life. Results show that not significant differences were found among treatments for both mass loss and colour (except L for MAP B treatment using BLOW®). After 12 days of cold storage vitamin C content resulted higher and significantly different in all the treatments with respect to control, resulting also in a better "appearance" and "odour" score (on a scale from 1 to 5) for MAP treatments. The tested smart device shows interesting capabilities to improve the quality of fruit and vegetables. The use the smart device, even without MAP, allowed to obtain an effective shelf-life increase of the packed rocket leaves stored at 4°C.