Recent Advances in Reducing Food Losses in the Supply Chain of Fresh Agricultural Produce

Processes

AlfadhlYahya Khaled¹  Nnanna Eke-emezie²  Abraham Kabutey³  DanielI. Onwude⁴  Guangnan Chen⁵  Barbara Sturm⁶ 

[1] Department of Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40503, USA;Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Uyo, Uyo 52021, Nigeria;Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Prague, Czech Republic;Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland;Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia;Process and Systems Engineering in Agriculture Group, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, University of Kassel, DE-37213 Witzenhausen, Germany;

关键词: food security;    food quality;    agricultural production;    crop storage and processing;    food distribution;    smart digital technology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/pr8111431

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Fruits and vegetables are highly nutritious agricultural produce with tremendous human health benefits. They are also highly perishable and as such are easily susceptible to spoilage, leading to a reduction in quality attributes and induced food loss. Cold chain technologies have over the years been employed to reduce the quality loss of fruits and vegetables from farm to fork. However, a high amount of losses (≈50%) still occur during the packaging, transportation, and storage of these fresh agricultural produce. This study highlights the current state-of-the-art of various advanced tools employed to reducing the quality loss of fruits and vegetables during the packaging, storage, and transportation cold chain operations, including the application of imaging technology, spectroscopy, multi-sensors, electronic nose, radio frequency identification, printed sensors, acoustic impulse response, and mathematical models. It is shown that computer vision, hyperspectral imaging, multispectral imaging, spectroscopy, X-ray imaging, and mathematical models are well established in monitoring and optimizing process parameters that affect food quality attributes during cold chain operations. We also identified the Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual representation models of a particular fresh produce (digital twins) as emerging technologies that can help monitor and control the uncharted quality evolution during its postharvest life. These advances can help diagnose and take measures against potential problems affecting the quality of fresh produce in the supply chains. Plausible future pathways to further develop these emerging technologies and help in the significant reduction of food losses in the supply chain of fresh produce are discussed. Future research should be directed towards integrating IoT and digital twins in order to intensify real-time monitoring of the cold chain environmental conditions, and the eventual optimization of the postharvest supply chains. This study gives promising insight towards the use of advanced technologies in reducing losses in the postharvest supply chain of fruits and vegetables.

【 授权许可】

Unknown