Effect of pretreatment and packaging methods on quality of cold vacuum dried peach
This study was conducted to investigate the effects of pretreatment and different packaging methods on the physicochemical properties of cold vacuum-dried peaches. All the dried peach samples were stored such as N2 gas substitution, vacuum and passive packaged with polyethylene (PE) film and oriented polypropylene (OPP)/aluminum (Al)/PE film at 40℃ for 50 days. The weight change, pH, soluble solids content, titratable acidity, soluble solid-acid ratio (SS/TA), delta E, browning degree and phenolic compounds were analyzed. The weight change and pH were lower in the 0.1% vitamin C-treated group and were significantly lowest in the vacuum-treated OPP/AL/PE. The soluble solids content and the SS/TA were higher in the non-treated groups than in the vitamin C-treated groups. According to the packaging methods, the L* values were higher in the vacuum, N2 gas and passive package, in that order. In addition, the browning degree and the delta E value were lower in the pretreated groups and significantly lowest in the vacuum-treated OPP/AL/PE with 0.1% vitamin C group. The phenolic compounds were high for the pretreated groups, according to the packaging methods (vacuum > N2 gas> passive), and the OPP/AL/PE was significantly higher than the PE. These results suggest that different packaging materials and pretreatment methods affected the quality of the dried peaches, and the vacuum- OPP/AL/PE film packaging group showed a high quality.