Postharvest Management of Fruit and Vegetables

After they are harvested, the value of fruits and vegetables is added in successive stages up to the point when someone eats them. The aim of postharvest management is to maximise this added value. This ultimately should benefit the whole community, whether through increased export earnings or extending the availability of fresh produce through the year. Conversely losses hurt everyone. Kader (1992) has estimated that from 5 to 25 percent of fruit and vegetables leaving the farm gate is never consumed, but has to be thrown away. Obviously, disease and oversupply contribute to this, but there are many other reasons for the losses. Postharvest management can influence all them, with the wo most important areas being temperature management and packaging. The Impact of Postharvest Losses Postharvest disorders or losses in quality have economic impacts vastly greater than the actual losses caused by frequency and intensity of their occurrence. For example there are direct financial losses incurred by the grower from batches of fruit expressing the disorder. Direct losses can also cause financial losses for postharvest operators and marketers. If the problem arises more than once then there is increased quality compliance costs that arise from systems being put in place to monitor all lines and isolate problem batches. An intermittent and unpredictable disorder occurring in the market is a real problem, as it will increasingly undermine trade confidence in the product causing downward price pressure. Another point to remember is that the loss of value of a down graded product is likely to be substantially greater for highly differentiated branded products which sell at a premium in themarket. All the hard work that has gone into promoting and raising the profile of a branded product can be quickly eroded if there are postharvest quality problems with some lines of that product