Advances in post-harvest technology and value additions of edible mushrooms

Post harvest technology (PHT) is the method applied to the produce after harvest for its protection, processing, distribution, marketing, and utilization to cater the food and nutritional demands of the consumers. Post-harvest losses are very high in most of the food items including mushrooms because of high content of water. Hence, study of the post-harvest physiological processes influencing quality, shelf life and its management to ameliorate the situation is essential. In order to minimize these losses, it is necessary to have adequate and sound post harvest practices for short term/long term storage and processing. Pretreatments, packing, pre cooling are some of the techniques for short term storage of mushrooms while, drying, pickling and steeping preservation are some other techniques commonly used for long term storage of fresh mushrooms. Drying is the most common practice of extending shelf life of mushrooms at room temperatures in rural areas. Sun drying of mushroom is a very old and simple technique to obtain quality products. Sun drying or drying using solar dryers is working very efficiently. Pickling of oyster mushroom is a kind of long term preservation. It is done in a commercial scale by Satpuda Mushroom Sahkari Sangh, an NGO at Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Mushroom at Raipur (Chhattisgarh). Steeping preservation of mushrooms is a convenient and economical method. In one of the studies clearly indicated that the shelf life of oyster mushroom could be prolonged for a period of 145 days while steeping in 0.1% citric acid, 0.11% acetic acid and 2% salt. In present days, there is a huge demand for the instant or ready made or ready-to-make food products. Now, value addition is becoming an important area and has enormous scope. Value can be added to the mushrooms from grading to the instant made snacks or the main-course item to the varied extent. Several real value-added products like mushroom papad, nuggets, bijoura, chakli, mushroom soup powder, biscuits, mushroom fortified wheat flour (enriched in several nutritional and medicinal attributes), Royal Oyster Capsules and readymade mushroom ketch up have been developed but are yet to be popularized in the Indian market.