Influence of Different Storage Conditions on Strawberry Fruit Nutritional Quality

Strawberries are considered as a very rich source of bioactive compounds (vitamin C and B9) and phenolic compounds (phenolic acids, flavonoids and anthocyanins). Moreover, the total antioxidant capacity (TAC), which measures the radical scavenging activity, is related to the amount of antioxidant compounds in strawberries and is a good parameter for indicating fruit nutritional quality. Unfortunately, strawberries are highly perishable fruits, and their perishable nature can lead both to physical damage and chemical degradation during storage, which causes a great loss of the phytochemical compounds pattern. For these reasons, strawberry is usually consumed as fresh fruit or after few days of storage, but in some cases, it is necessary to store fruits for longer time. Today, with remarkable advancement in postharvest technology and food engineering, many effective techniques are developed to maintain the original qualities. In this study, we were applying different cold storage temperature (-20 and -80 degrees C) on whole fruit of three strawberry genotypes ('Arianna', 'Francesca' and 'Silvia') for up to six months, and evaluating the influence of different storages condition and length on the preservation of fruit content of nutritional compounds. The concentration of the main bioactive compounds, such as anthocyanins and vitamin C, were measured through HPLC-UV. Results demonstrated that, as expected, there is a difference in the fruit nutritional quality of different cultivars. Furthermore, there is a decline in the phytochemical pattern of the fruits with the prolongation of the storage time. Fruit phytochemicals content was also affected by the storage temperature. These results are important in order to better plan fruit storage conditions and time in order to maintain the better fruit nutritional quality.