Combination of Natural Variability Estimation with Real Time Measurement for Mushroom Shelf Life Assessment.

Abstract

The shelf life of mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) is affected by the natural variability of the produce which influences the perishable vegetable quality. One of the main causes of this variability is non-homogeneity in the product maturity at harvest, resulting in each vegetable batch being at a different stage of senescence. The present work aims to study a new approach to improve the assessment of the shelf life of mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) taking into account this variability. The study of variability involved the: i) study of the shelf life, quality parameters and variability of the mushrooms and modelling these experimental laboratory kinetics using Linear Mixed Effects Models (LMEM), ii) study of image analysis of mushrooms stored in controlled environmental conditions and modelling the kinetics using the kinetics model, iii) study of the biochemical basis of mushroom senescence using GCMS and iv) study of the respiration, transpiration rate and the variability and modelling them. The project showed that the temperature and relative humidity are important factors that affect the shelf life, quality parameters, variability, Grey value and brown spotting of the mushrooms. To maintain the quality parameters and reduce the variability inside the batch, it is necessary to have low temperature and high quality humidity conditions. For respiration and transpiration, temperature is the only factor and the best conditions are low temperatures