Efficacy of active and passive modified atmosphere packaging on quality preservation and storage life of pomegranate fruit and arils: A review

Pomegranate has nutritional value and health benefits due to its bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties. Fruit consumption is strongly recommended due to its high content of vitamins, fiber, minerals, and polyphenols. Supplying ready-to-eat pomegranate can be a beneficial technique to increase consumption with regard to its nutritional properties. However, maintaining nutritional quality and preventing microbial spoilage is a major challenge. Fruit quality is lost with visible symptoms such as weight loss, shriveling, husk scald, chilling injury, fungal rot, aril color degradation, and off-flavor during long-term storage. Therefore, it is very important to use appropriate strategies to maintain pomegranate whole fruit and aril quality. Gases around the product create a suitable environment for oxidative reactions and aerobic microorganism growth. Therefore, changing the atmosphere around the product can help maintain its quality. One of the effective methods to increase the postharvest life of products is to use modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), which reduces microbial spoilage and chilling injury, preserves the quality, and extends the shelf life by reducing the respiration rate. Modified atmosphere packaging, which uses natural atmospheric components (O2, CO2 and N2), has been widely accepted due to the lack of toxic residues on the product. This review discusses on recent research in terms of MAP application on quality properties and postharvest life of pomegranate fruit and arils during storage.