Posts Tagged: Postharvest Technology Center
Fresh-cut Workshop Covered Wide Range of Cutting-edge Information
The workshop covered an overview of different aspects of production, processing, packaging, distribution, and quality assurance of fresh-cut products. On the first day, Dr. Mikal Saltviet taught on Fresh-cut product biology and provided a real-world demonstration of a respiration test. Dr. Marita Cantwell's “Quality and Nutritional Aspects of Fresh-cut Products” class was also well received; one participant noted Dr. Cantwell was a “very knowledgeable and engaging” speaker. To end the first day, the fresh-cut workshop participants engaged in a fun ice breaker which included delicious snacks and an engaging atmosphere to meet and network with instructors and other participants. The second day featured a presentation by Dr. Jeff Brandenburg on “MAP: Plastic Film Technology and Selection”. Participants not only found Dr. Brandenburg “very informative”, but also “humorous” with lots of “good stories and examples”. On the third and final date, participants gained specialized knowledge on specific commodities from kiwi fruit, pomegranate, and berries to broccoli, cauliflower, and celery. These classes were “quick but informative”, providing “good coverage” on individual fruits and vegetables.
Overall, attendees, from small, local processors to large, corporate businesses, reported that they benefited from our workshop this year. One participant remarked that this year's Fresh Cut course “was exceptional in all respects”. Others exclaimed that the course provided a “well rounded range of topics and perspectives” with “speakers well versed in their areas of expertise”. One participant, brand new to the industry, found the course “very helpful” as “everything was very well organized and all topics were thoroughly covered”.
First Produce Professional Certificate Earned
Stefan initially attended the 2013 Postharvest Technology Short Course and was inspired by what he learned. In October he enrolled in the Produce Professional Certificate program, and a month later attended the Produce Safety Workshop, one of the required components. In March 2014 he attended the Fruit Ripening & Retail Handling Workshop, and even though at that point he had completed all the required campus-based courses, Stefan really wanted to attend the Postharvest Technology Short Course Field Tour. So Stefan returned in June and participated in the week-long field tour. He told me that visiting such a wide variety of postharvest operations really drove home the lessons he learned during the workshops.
We congratulate Stefan on this achievement, and welcome him as the Postharvest Technology Center's first Certified Produce Professional #001!
Fresh-cut Products Workshop Offers Cutting-Edge Content
At the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center, we are excited to announce that our 19th annual Fresh Cut Products: Maintaining Quality and Safety Workshop is right around the corner! This year, the workshop will be held at the beautiful Buehler Alumni and Visitor's Center from September 23rd-25th. Our team of instructors understands that fresh-cut standards have become increasingly rigorous as consumers demand high quality, fresh, nutritious, safe, and long lasting produce. Our specialists are provide cutting-edge information that allow workshop participants to achieve this goal of high quality fruits and vegetables. Over the years, our fresh cut workshops have proven to be extremely valuable to professionals seeking to increase the value of their produce.
Organized by Dr. Marita Cantwell, this three day workshop offers lectures, demonstrations, and discussions for food professionals in aspects of production, processing, packaging, distribution, and quality assurance of fresh-cut products. Some specific topics include consumer perception of product quality and safety, physiology and biochemistry of fresh-cut products, nutritional composition of fresh-cut products, temperature management, and more. Additionally, participants will gain working knowledge of time-honored and new procedures in the fresh-cut industry. Our workshop traditionally has featured discussions on microbial food safety, sensory evaluation, and the effects of temperatures and modified atmospheres on fresh-cut fruit and vegetable quality.
Who do we believe should attend? Our workshop is widely applicable to small, local, and regional produce processors to large businesses. Professionals such as food scientists, food engineers, quality assurance personnel, and more are strongly encouraged to attend. Participants in the past have remarked that this workshop was “stimulating”, “excellent”, and “relevant to industry”. In order to ensure an optimal learning environment, this course is limited to 60 participants. Please don't miss out on this opportunity, we invite you to register quickly using our online registration site or by calling Ms. Penny Stockdale, our registration coordinator at 530-752-7672! We hope to see you there!
Hot days, cool rooms, tasty vegetables
I'll admit that one of my favorite things to do on a hot day is to walk into an air-conditioned room. That burst of cool air in those first moments can be so refreshing.
It turns out I'm not alone — fruits and vegetables like to be cool on hot days too.
Controlling temperature helps regulate the aging process of a fruit, along with its water loss and microorganism growth. Storing fruits and vegetables at their lowest safe temperatures means they taste better and last longer.
To help us know the best ways to store fresh produce at home, the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center offers a free PDF poster Storing Fresh Fruits and Vegetables for Better Taste, which includes tips for different fruits and vegetables, from avocado to watermelon.
Knowing the right temperature is only part of the battle for farmers, who are responsible for the first links in the cold chain. Getting produce out of the sun and cool for storage can be a big challenge — and an expensive one.
But a farmer in New York, Ron Khosla, answered this challenge with a tool that can help make cooling produce less expensive for small-scale farmers. He created the CoolBot, a micro-controller that turns a well-insulated room with a regular air conditioner into a commercial cool room for storing fruits and vegetables.
Just as small-scale American farmers struggle with affordable cooling, so do smallholder farmers elsewhere in the world. Researchers with the Horticulture Collaborative Research Support Program (Horticulture CRSP) decided to test the CoolBot device, first at the UC Davis Student Farm and then with farmers in India, Honduras and Uganda.
Indeed, the CoolBot-equipped rooms worked, and the program is building more in Bangladesh right now. But there is a catch: Farmers must have access to reliable grid electricity for a cool room like this to work. To address this problem, the CoolBot in Uganda was powered with solar photovoltaic cells, but that led to another set of challenges — expensive equipment and fear of theft.
So how do you effectively cool vegetables, hot from a field, without grid electricity? A solution that is low-cost, effective and off-grid has not been found yet. In an effort to uncover such a solution, Horticulture CRSP will soon be launching a technology design competition that asks that very question. Can you answer this challenge?
Feijoa--You can eat that?
I first tasted a feijoa (fay-zho-uh, or pineapple guava) as a student here at UC Davis many years ago. A friend showed me her secret trees (south side of Wellman in Davis — tons on the ground right now!), and I was hooked. I didn’t think much of it at the time, other than thinking this is one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life. It tastes better than candy, and ripens right around Halloween - sweet! I had never seen or heard of a feijoa. You likely haven’t either, so I’m writing to introduce you.
First a little history. This subtropical plant originated in the higher altitude regions of central South America, but has since been introduced and grown commercially in Europe, California, New Zealand, South Africa and the area around southern Russia. In California, Sutter and Yuba counties were the hot spot for growing pineapple guavas in the late 1980s. Farmers in that area, who benefitted from the kiwi expansion a few years before, enthusiastically jumped into the feijoa business, however did not realize the same success.
According to Adel Kader, UC Cooperative Extension specialist emeritus, "the nurseries that provided the trees were not accurate in identifying the different variety of trees, and there was a large difference in the taste.”
So a farmer had no idea if he had a good tree or not. Additionally, judging fruit maturity is difficult since the fruits do not significantly change color as they ripen and drop to the ground when they’re mature. So the optimal picking strategy is by “touch picking” where if you touch a fruit and, if it comes off the plant, it’s ready to eat. Imagine doing that for a whole orchard.
Back to the present. I rediscovered feijoas after riding my bike down our street before the green waste pick-up a couple years ago and noticed about 30 feijoas in my neighbor’s pick-up pile! They didn’t know you could eat them. So, yes, I picked them out of the pile and introduced my neighbors to the deliciousness of the pineapple guava. And then I promptly went out and bought myself a tree to plant in my own yard.
Feijoas taste like taking the best elements of strawberry, guava and pineapple and mixing them together. They smell pleasantly sweet and flowery. To eat a feijoa, cut (or rip) it in half and scoop out the inside creamy white flesh (a little brownish color is fine to eat). Feijoas are a good source of vitamin C, fiber and potassium, and they even contain a little protein.
So, where can you find feijoas? Well, if you're in Davis, visit the south side of Wellman. Or, you can plant your own tree like I did (you can reference the Postharvest Technology Center’s Produce Fact Sheet for Feijoas here), or you can go to your local farmers market. It’s a short season, so this is the weekend to search them out. When you find them, Kader suggests you “look for a larger fruit with a slight give and a nice aroma.” You won’t be disappointed.