Edible Coatings for Postharvest Quality Maintenance of Horticultural Produce

The precision conservation of horticultural produce, essential for sustaining their marketability over prolonged durations and facilitating transportation to remote locales, constitutes an imperative facet of agricultural practice. Concurrently, heightened public awareness regarding the significance of fresh food consumption has led to a continual decline in the utilization of chemical processing and environmentally deleterious packaging materials. Diverse methodologies and expertise have been proffered as solutions to this challenge, albeit each harbors inherent fluctuations. Furthermore, owing to the profound heterogeneity inherent in agricultural produce, the customization of a universally applicable, all-encompassing scheme proves unattainable. Notably, horticultural food items, owing to their heightened susceptibility to decay, necessitate a more nuanced approach to their conservation. Various edible coating materials, encompassing polysaccharides, gums, proteins, lipids, Aloe vera gel, ascorbic acid, salicylic acid, aqueous extracts of vegetables, and pure vegetable juice, have been employed for this purpose. In the continuous pursuit of refinement, researchers have devised innovative systems, such as the incorporation of nanosized particles and probiotics (beneficial microbes) into edible coatings, with the aim of enhancing their efficacy.