The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of edible coatings on shelf-life, weight loss, metabolic activity and microbial contamination of peaches in natura. White peaches cv. Perola de Mairinque (IAC 769-8) were coated with 1% gelan gum (p/v) and 1% gelan gum + 1% sorbitol (p/v) solutions, packed in paperboard box and stored at 10ºC/80-85% RH during 16 days. No coated fruits served as control. Gelan and gelan+sorbitol coatings had no effect on physiological activity of peaches, measured by respiration rates, total soluble solid content and total titratable acidity during storage. There was no difference among weight loss rates (~1.4 g/100g.day) of all treatments. Edible coatings had no influence on flavor acceptance of the peaches but control fruits had higher scores than coated ones on appearance acceptance evaluation because the opacity caused by the coating. There was no difference among treatments in total count of aerobic mesophiles microorganisms and molds and yeasts during storage but for psychotropic microorganisms, coated fruits presented lower counts than control ones. Gelan and gelan+sorbitol based coatings have not extended shelf-life of cold stored peaches due to coating composition that did not reduced the weight loss and physiological metabolism of the fruits.
shelf-life; fruits; storage; postharvest physiology; microbial contamination; weight loss
