Food Science and Technology Department
Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
7-20-2022
Citation
An ASABE Meeting Presentation DOI: https://doi.org/10.13031/aim.202200719 Paper Number: 2200719
Abstract
Cooling tomatoes after harvesting and keeping them refrigerated during their transportation is a key step toward preserving the quality attributes of tomatoes. This is a challenging task to accomplish in Nigeria, mainly because shipments of tomatoes from the tomato-producing states in northern Nigeria to the non-producing states in southern Nigeria were predominately not transported in a refrigerated ambient condition. To minimize postharvest losses of tomatoes during transportation, quantification of changes in quality would be extremely valuable. For this purpose, a digital tomato twin was developed based on mechanistic physics-based modeling. This digital twin simulated the actual thermal profile of tomatoes during transportation, based on sensed ambient environmental conditions. The impacts of the adoption of a low-cost, simple plastic packaging container compared with the traditional container (raffia baskets) on tomato's quality evolution during transportation were analyzed in-silico using the developed digital twin. Generally, the values of colour parameter (a*), firmness (N), and lycopene content (LC, mg/100ml) predicted by the digital twin model for tomatoes transported in raffia baskets were all higher than prediction for plastic container. For example, in shipment #2 the predicted colour parameter (a*) was 46.9 % more than the value predicted for the tomatoes in the plastic container at the end of the transportation. Similarly, lycopene content (LC) increased from 1.14 mg/100ml to 2.58 mg/100ml and 1.80 mg/100ml for raffia baskets and plastic container and firmness (N) decreased by 89% and 58 % in the raffia basket and plastic container respectively.
Comments
The authors are solely responsible for the content of this meeting presentation. The presentation does not necessarily reflect the official position of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), and its printing and distribution does not constitute an endorsement of views that may be expressed. Meeting presentations are not subject to the formal peer-review process by ASABE editorial committees; therefore, they are not to be presented as refereed publications. Publish your paper in our journal after successfully completing the peer review process. See www.asabe.org/JournalSubmission for details. The citation of this work should state that it is from an ASABE meeting paper. EXAMPLE: Author’s Last Name, Initials. 2022. Title of presentation. ASABE Paper No. ---. St. Joseph, MI.: ASABE. For information about securing permission to reprint or reproduce a meeting presentation, please contact ASABE at www.asabe.org/copyright (2950 Niles Road, St. Joseph, MI 49085-9659 USA).