Quality of fresh-cut avocado (Persea americana Mill.) stored under different temperatures

The goal of this work was to evaluate the effect of different storage temperatures on the quality maintenance of fresh-cut 'Fortuna' avocado (Persea americana Mill.). The fruit was selected, washed and sanitized with sodium hypochlorite solution (190 ppm total residual chlorinee) for 15 minutes. After that, the tip was cut and the fruit was also cut in halves, peeled and the pit removed, manually. Then the halves were immersed in 0.5% calcium chlorite + 0.5% cysteine solution for 2 minutes, to avoid darkening and packed in rigid plastic covered with 20 micrometer thick plastic wrap (PVC film) with a permeability to O2, CO2 and water vapor of 15,000, 80,000 and 390 cm3/m2/day, respectively. The product was stored under 3 different temperatures 0, 5, 10oC and evaluated at 5 different storege periods of 0, 2, 3, 5 and 6 days, in a randomized design in a 3x5 factorial. The storage of fresh-cut avocado at 5oC is the best alternative because it determines better maintenance of quality of the avocado. These presented lower darkening of pulp, better scores for appearance and acceptability, lower softening and polyphenoloxidase activity, in comparison to those stored at 0 and 10oC. The fresh-cut avocados stored at 5oC presented a shelf life of 5 days, based, mainly on, appearance, score 7.3, sited between the concepts "like moderately" and "like very much" on a hedonic scale of 9 points and 86% of acceptability, at the end of 5 days of storage.