Effects of delays to cooling and wrapping on strawberry quality (cv. Sweet Charlie)

'Sweet Charlie' strawberries were wrapped with PVC polymeric film, and forced-air precooled after delays of O, 6 or 8 hours at 30°C to study the effect of delaying precooling on physical and chemical quality characteristics of the strawberry. Non-wrapped fruits were used as a control. Evaluations were performed after storage for one week at 1°C plus one day at 20°C. Delaying the precooling resulted in less attractive fruits and loss of quality characteristics. Wrapped strawberries maintained better appearance and quality than nonwrapped berries