Postharvest Biology and Technology 25 (2002) 109 115 www.elsevier.

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Preprocessing storage conditions for green Conservolea and Chondrolia table olives
G.D. Nanos a,*, A.K. Kiritsakis b, E.M. Sfakiotakis c
Department of Agriculture, Laboratory of Pomology, Uni6ersity of Thessaly, Fitoko Str., 38446, Volos, Greece b Department of Food Technology, Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, 54101, Sindos, Greece c Laboratory of Pomology, Department of Agriculture, Aristot. Uni6ersity of Thessaloniki, 54006, Thessaloniki, Greece
a

Received 13 November 2000; accepted 20 August 2001

Abstract Green olives (Olea europaea L. cvs. Conservolea and Chondrolia ), destined for Spanish-style processing, were harvested at the beginning and the end of commercial harvest period and stored at 5 and 7.5 C in air or various controlled atmospheres. Olive quality was measured periodically and included mass loss, skin color, esh rmness and chilling injury symptoms, mainly internal browning. Larger samples of Conservolea olives were commercially processed with the Spanish method after storage for objective quality determination and taste panel evaluation. Mass loss of fresh olives during storage was generally low and no fruit decay was encountered. Fresh Chondrolia green olives were very sensitive to chilling injury. They lost their capacity to develop skin color and ripen after 2 4 weeks of cold storage with excessive internal browning, resulting in pitting and external discoloration. Fresh Conservolea green olives developed skin color, especially at 7.5 C, and after storage in air, 2 or 5 kPa CO2. Fruit stored at 2 kPa O2 in the presence or not of high CO2 retained their green color for more than 2 months. Conservolea olives slightly softened during storage but with longer storage, in parallel with chilling injury development, a rehardening of the fruit esh was measured, possibly an additional chilling injury symptom. Storage at 5 C and combinations of 2 kPa O2 and 2 or 5 kPa CO2 increased susceptibility to chilling injury, although fruit successfully retained skin green color. Objective and subjective quality evaluation of processed Conservolea olives gave similar differences between treatments. Abnormal avor seemed to be an additional result of chilling injury. In conclusion, Conservolea green olives can be stored up to 37 days at 5 C in air or for up to 22 days at 7.5 C and 2 kPa O2 plus 5 kPa CO2. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Olea europaea ; Olive; Quality; Cold storage; Controlled atmosphere; Low O2; High CO2; Chilling

1. Introduction A number of olive cultivars are being cultivated in Greece for processing as table olives. Fruit are harvested mature-green or black depending on the cultivar and processing method. The most com-

* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 30-421-93181; fax: + 30421-93161. E -mail address: gnanos@agr.uth.gr (G.D. Nanos).

0925-5214/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 2 5 - 5 2 1 4 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 6 4 - 8

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mon processing methods for green olives are the Spanish and Castel-Vetrano ones. Most of the Greek olives processed with the above methods belong to the Conservolea (Amssis) and Chondrolia cultivars. The quality of the processed product depends on the skin color and esh rmness of the raw product at the time of processing. Thus the harvesting period of green olives is short followed by storage in brine before nal processing. The disposal of brine requires wastewater treatment, while the effect of brine on nal product quality has not been measured. In addition, only fresh olives can be processed with the Castel-Vetrano method. Therefore, the green olive processing industry is interested in the use of an alternative to the above preprocessing storage method for fresh green olives. There is a limited number of reports on olive storage without brine, most of which concern olives destined for Californian-style processing or for oil extraction (ripe green or colored fruit). It was found that there is a great deal of variation on storability between cultivars even when grown in the same area. Mature-green olives are chilling sensitive when kept long enough at temperatures below 5 C, while fruit of some cultivars can be damaged at temperatures as high as 10 C (Maxie, 1963, 1964). The main chilling injury symptoms of olives include internal browning of the esh around the pit, pitting appearing as dull skin color and, progressively, external browning (Kader et al., 1989; Kader, 1996). Controlled atmospheres have been successfully used in addition to low temperature to extend the storage life of various fruits and vegetables (Kader, 1986). Reduced O2, increased CO2 levels or their combinations in the storage room atmosphere can inhibit chlorophyll degradation, color development and loss of esh rmness in various commodities. Atmospheric manipulation is useful to delay the above physiological changes especially for chilling sensitive crops, as these cannot be stored for a long time at low temperatures. In addition, controlled atmosphere storage has been found to delay the appearance or, often, aggravate physiological disorders, like chilling injury, depending on the commodity (Kader, 1986). Mission and Manzanillo mature green olives

grown in California and Gordal and Picual olives grown in Spain have beneted from controlled atmosphere storage at 5 C (Woskow and Maxie, 1965; Kader et al., 1989; Garcia and Streif, 1991; Castellano et al., 1993). Since those olives were destined for Californian-style processing or oil extraction, they were harvested mature and skin color was not of importance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of controlled atmospheres during low temperature storage on olive fruit chilling sensitivity and quality, mainly skin color and esh rmness, for the two most important table olive Greek cultivars. This would allow an extension of the processing period with the Spanish method for fresh green olives.

2. Material and methods Conservolea and Chondrolia green olives (Olea europaea L.) were harvested from commercial farms in Volos, Central Greece and Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, respectively, at the beginning and end of the commercial harvest period in 1994 (22 September and 7 October) and 1995 (3 October and 17 October). In all harvests two trees per replicate were used and the fruit were sorted next day for defects and color. In 1994, each 10-fruit replicate was kept in netted bags and all replicates were placed randomly in 400 L sealed metal chambers connected to a CO2 and O2 analyzer and a computer automatically controlling the atmospheric composition of each chamber ( 9 0.2%). Around 95% ( 9 2%) relative humidity in the chambers was achieved with good air circulation using fans and free water in trays. In the 5 C or 7.5 C room, individual chambers were set at atmospheric conditions shown for each year in Table 1 (balance N2). In 1995, we decided to use only the above storage conditions for the following reasons: (a) CO2 could build up due to olive respiration and it would be expensive to remove it from commercial storage rooms; and (b) combinations of low O2 and high CO2 kept green skin color for a long period in 1994.

G.D. Nanos et al. / Posthar6est Biology and Technology 25 (2002) 109 115 Table 1 Atmospheric conditions (kPa) in individual chambers used in green olive fruit storage (balance N2) 1994 At 5 C O2 21 2 19 17 2 2 CO2 0 0 2 5 2 5 At 7.5 C O2 21 2 19 17 2 2 CO2 0 0 2 5 2 5 1995 At 5 C O2 21 2 2 CO2 0 0 5 At 7.5 C O2 21 2 CO2 0 5

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Quality was evaluated on three 10-fruit replicates before storage and after the duration in storage shown in Table 2 for both years. Quality evaluation included mass loss, skin color measurements with a Minolta colorimeter (model CR-200, Minolta Camera Co., Japan) and esh rmness with a Chatillon penetrometer equipped with a 3 mm diameter plunger (J. Chatillon and Sons, NY). Flesh rmness measurements were taken after careful removal of skin and penetration of the esh for about 2 mm (esh width ranged from 4 5 mm). Calculations of Chroma (C *, departure from gray towards pure color) and hue angle (h , true color) were performed according to McGuire (1992). Chilling injury incidence was always evaluated by a trained judge. Pitting and internal browning were evaluated separately on individual fruit and calculated as follows: 0, no fruit with symptoms; 1, from 1 to 30% of fruit injured; 2, from 30 to 50% of fruit injured; 3, more than 50% of fruit injured. Samples from categories 0 and 1 were considered marketable.
Table 2 Days in storage after which quality evaluation was performed for each year and harvest of Conservolea and Chondrolia green olives 1994 1st harvest 33 54 77 2nd harvest 14 35 58 1995 1st harvest 28 43 63 2nd harvest 22 50

Three 10-fruit replicates were used for each cultivar, harvest, combination of temperature and atmospheric conditions and storage period. Analysis of variance was performed in relation to cultivar, duration of storage and treatment and LSDs at the 5% level were calculated (SPSS 8.0, Chicago, IL). In 1995, additional two 3-kg samples of Conservolea olives per treatment and storage period were also stored for quality evaluation after processing. After each storage period, samples of adequate quality (green skin color and minor or no chilling injury symptoms) were commercially processed with the Spanish method. Processed olives were evaluated for skin color and esh rmness as the fresh ones. In addition, a taste panel of 13 trained members (olive processing industry personnel and the authors) evaluated all fruit samples for color, crispness and avor on a scale ranging from worst (1) to best (4) in comparison to each other and commercial high quality fruit samples. Means and standard deviations were calculated.

3. Results and discussion Green Chondrolia olives lost slightly more mass during storage than Conservolea olives (Table 3). This may be due to high chilling injury or anatomical features of the epidermis of Chondrolia olives, as it was previously reported that chilling accelerates water loss for many commodities (Kays, 1997). Olive mass loss increased with storage temperature and duration for both cultivars tested (Table 3). Olives stored in air lost more mass than those kept in controlled atmosphere (pooled data for both cultivars, 1st harvest and longest storage duration. 3.8% at 5 C and 5% at 7.5 C in air vs 1.7% at 5 C and 2.2% at 7.5 C in controlled atmosphere). Similar results were previously found for other commodities (Kader, 1986). It must be mentioned that throughout the storage experiments no rotten fruit were found, as we used relatively immature fruit compared to olive fruit used previously which showed signicant fungal growth after cold storage for 50 days (Castellano et al., 1993).

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Table 3 Mass losses of Conservolea and Chondrolia green olives harvested on 22 September (1st harvest) and 7 October 1994 (2nd harvest) and stored for the duration shown at 5 or 7.5 C Cultivar Harvest Duration (days) Mass loss (%)

Storage at 5 C Conservolea 1st

2nd

33 54 77 14 35 58 33 54 77 14 35 58

1.4 1.7 2.3 0.5 0.9 1.4 1.5 1.8 2.6 1.1 1.2 1.9

Chondrolia

1st

2nd

Storage at 7.5 C Conservolea 1st

2nd

33 54 77 14 35 58 33 54 77 14 35 58 Temperature Cultivar Harvest Duration in storage

2.0 2.5 3.2 1.0 1.4 2.3 2.2 2.5 3.3 1.0 1.5 2.4 *** * *** ***

developed red color faster than low O2 stored fruit (Fig. 1). Skin color remained green in Conservolea olives stored in combinations of low O2 and high CO2. Similar results were found with the changes in a * and h color indices (data not shown). Red color development is detrimental for these fruit as only green fruit can be processed with the Spanish method. Skin C * values of Chondrolia green olives also decreased during storage (Fig. 2). However, this decrease was mostly the result of advanced chilling injury, and not due to normal red color development. Chilling injury initially appeared as esh browning, and then developed in pitting and brown black areas of the skin following extensive esh damage. At 5 C, skin injury developed mainly after prolonged storage in high CO2 alone or in combination with low O2 (Fig. 2A). Controlled atmosphere treatments clearly intensied chilling injury symptoms (depicted as skin color

Chondrolia

1st

2nd

Signicance

Combinations of temperature and atmospheric conditions were taken as replicates because there were no differences between them (n = 18) * Signicant at P50.05. *** Signicant at P50.001.

Red skin color appeared faster at 7.5 C than at 5 C in Conservolea olives, as shown by the decreasing C * values measured (Fig. 1). Red color development progressed with storage especially after 45 days at 5 C or before 30 days at 7.5 C. Conservolea olives stored in air or high CO2

Fig. 1. Changes in skin C * values of Conservolea olives harvested on 22 September 1994 and stored at 5 (A) and 7.5 C (B) in air, 2 kPa O2, 2 kPa CO2, 5 kPa CO2 and their combinations for 0, 33, 54 and 77 days. Each data point represents the mean of three 10-fruit replicates. Overall LSD0.05 = 6.2.

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this esh rmness increase could be due to increased mass losses. In our study, mass losses were very low in general and treatments with the higher mass losses were the least affected by chilling injury (Tables 3 and 4). In addition, we used a penetrometer instead of other methods used previously. Olives kept at 7.5 C were softer than the ones kept at 5 C (Fig. 3). Controlled atmosphere treatments generally resulted in the highest rise in esh rmness after prolonged storage (Fig. 3). Chondrolia olives developed more internal browning (main chilling injury symptom) during storage than Conservolea olives (Table 4). Chondrolia olives also developed pitting and skin injury, making this cultivar unsuitable for storage due to its high chilling sensitivity. For both cultivars, storage of fruit at 5 C resulted in higher internal browning incidence than storage at 7.5 C, while internal browning incidence increased with time in storage (Table 4). Chondrolia olives developed unacceptable internal
Fig. 2. Changes in skin C * values of Chondrolia olives harvested on 22 September 1994 and stored at 5 (A) and 7.5 C (B) in air, 2 kPa O2, 2 kPa CO2, 5 kPa CO2 and their combinations for 0, 33, 54 and 77 days. Each data point represents the mean of three 10-fruit replicates. Overall LSD0.05 = 4.5.

changes) of Chondrolia olives. At 7.5 C, red skin color developed in the presence of air or high CO2 rendering these fruit unsuitable for processing (Fig. 2B). Low O2 treatments delayed red color appearance at 7.5 C. Late harvested green olives were softer than early harvested ones (data not shown). This difference may be unimportant as processing may reharden the fruit. In general, esh rmness decreased with storage, but late in storage, when chilling injury developed, the fruit of most treatments became signicantly harder (Fig. 3). This trend was found in both years, cultivars and harvests and it could be an additional characteristic chilling injury symptom of olives not recorded before. Signicant increase in esh rmness of Gordal mill olives after prolonged cold storage was also observed but not discussed (Garcia and Streif, 1991). They did not report mass losses, so

Fig. 3. Changes in esh rmness (N) of Conservolea (A) and Chondrolia (B) olives harvested on 17 October 1995 and stored at 5 and 7.5 C in air, 2 kPa O2 or 2 kPa O2 plus 5 kPa CO2 for 0, 22 and 50 days. Each data point represents the mean of three 10-fruit replicates. LSD at 5% level for each cultivar is shown.

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Table 4 Development of internal browning in Conservolea and Chondrolia olives harvested 22 September 1994 and stored at 5 C and 7.5 C in air, 2 kPa O2, 2 kPa CO2, 5 kPa CO2 and their combinations for 54 and 77 days Air Storage at 5 C Conservolea 54 days 77 days Chondrolia 54 days 77 days Storage at 7.5 C Conservolea 54 days 77 days Chondrolia 54 days 77 days 2 kPaO2 2 kPaCO2 5 kPaCO2 2+ 2 2+5

0 1 2 3

1 2 2 3

1 1 3 3

1 2 3 3

1 2 3 3

0 2 3 3

1 1 2 2

0 0 2 2

1 1 2 1

0 1 1 2

1 2 2 3

0 3 3 3

Chilling injury was evaluated as: 0, no fruit with symptoms; 1, from 1 to 30% of fruit injured; 2, from 30 to 50% of fruit injured; 3, more than 50% of fruit injured. Each data point represents the mean of 30 fruit.

browning in less than 30 days at 5 C and less than 54 days at 7.5 C. Internal browning incidence was without commercial signicance for Conservolea olives up to 54 days at 5 C and after more than 54 days at 7.5 C (Table 4). During 1995, Conservolea olives processed with the Spanish method had lower skin L * (5%), a * (59%), C * (17%) and h (12%) values and higher esh rmness (38%) than fresh olives (data not shown). Thus, it can be concluded that processing substantially changes the major subjective quality indices of green olives. Processed olive esh rmness did not show substantial differences between treatments (data not shown). It seems that esh rmness of the nal processed product is the result of preprocessing storage conditions, chilling injury and processing itself, and merits further studying. Taste panel evaluation similarly showed that prolonged storage, in general, resulted in poor color processed product (Table 5). Flesh texture (crispness) was acceptable for fruit from all treatments. Finally, extended storage that resulted in chilling injury (especially storage at 5 C and controlled atmospheres) or ripening negatively affected processed fruit avor. This loss of avor may be another symptom of olive chilling

injury common to chilling sensitive commodities. The 5 C storage temperature used in our experiments is the one previously found as the best for olive storage (Kader et al., 1989). Temperatures above 5 C can also be used, but ripening, mainly green color loss, must be delayed with controlled atmospheres. Low O2 with or without high CO2 delayed ripening changes for our cultivars but aggravated chilling injury symptoms. In fact, controlled atmospheres have been shown to delay or aggravate chilling injury for various commodities (Wang, 1982; Kader, 1986). Low O2 storage seems to act synergistically with low temperature to aggravate chilling injury in maturegreen olives in USA, Spain and Greece (Kader et al., 1989; Castellano et al., 1993; Olias and Garcia, 1997). High CO2 storage in our experiments did not delay ripening and may actually have accelerated green color loss of olive skin. Chilling injury of green olives appeared as the typical previously observed symptoms (Kader, 1996). Thus, Chondrolia olives are unsuitable for preprocessing storage for more than 15 20 days, although treatments to delay chilling injury could be further investigated. The esh rmness increase, which was observed with chilling in our

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Table 5 Taste panel evaluation for color, crispness (texture) and avor of processed Conservolea olives after preprocessing storage of fresh fruit for the duration and conditions shown Harvest date October October October October October October October October October 3 3 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 Days 43 43 22 22 22 22 37 37 37 Temperature/atmosphere (C/kPaO2+kPaCO2) 5/2+5 7.5/2+5 5/21+0 5/2+5 7.5/21+0 7.5/2+5 5/21+0 5/2+5 7.5/2+5 Color 2 4 3 3 3 4 3 4 1 Crispness 4 4 3 3 2 3 4 2 3 Flavor 1 3 4 2 2 4 3 2 2

Each data point represents the mean of 13 individual judge evaluations. Evaluation was conducted on a scale of four from worst (1) to best (4) in comparison to each other and commercial high quality fruit samples.

experiments and measured with a penetrometer, could be another novel symptom. The loss of avor found in chilled olives is also a typical secondary effect of chilling injury. The two cultivars used in our study with different chilling sensitivity could be a useful system for future work on the understanding of chilling injury mechanisms. Conservolea green olives used in our experiments, when harvested early or late, had similar quality and chilling sensitivity. Late harvested olives are practically more suitable for storage, as processing equipment and personnel can be used for an additional period when freshly harvested green olives are not available. Limiting factors in Conservolea green olive storage were chilling injury appearance (internal browning of fresh fruit and loss of taste of processed product) and loss of green skin color. Softening of fresh olives does not seem of importance as processing results in partial fruit esh hardening. Finally, the best storage conditions for Conservolea green olives are for up to 37 days at 5 C in air or for up to 22 days at 7.5 C in 2 kPa O2 plus 5 kPa CO2. Of course, storage in air is cheaper and should be used commercially in combination with good ventilation, so CO2 does not accumulate in storage rooms.

References
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