Project
Biomarkers for Quality
In this sub-project, research is conducted into a useful measuring principle based on volatile substances (biomarker) that could serve as an “early-warning system”. The research is mainly focused on two products: redcurrants and pears. The correct biomarker measurements will ensure early detection of negative quality developments, so that more adequate intervention can be taken to prevent loss. Innovative sensor technology will be assessed for their value in measuring/monitoring relevant biomarkers in different chains.
Quality Assessment
In a storage trial with 10 different batches of redcurrants, the emission of volatile substances was measured and the fruit quality assessed weekly. The quality assessment has revealed correlations between the measured quality and the measured volatile substances. This will be further investigated in this sub-project.
For the pear storage application, practical measurements seem to show that the conditioning hardware has an impact on the concentrations of volatile substances in the storage compartment. Accumulation measurements in laboratory cuvettes at Wageningen Food and Biobased Research show that healthy pears clearly produce different volatile substances than pears infected with fisheye rot.