Value Addition of Fruits: An Effective Process to Combat Post-harvest Losses

Abstract

Bruising, breaking, impact wounding, cutting, and other forms of injury are the common causes of deterioration and rotting losses of freshly harvested fruit crops due to poor harvesting, handling, storage, transportation, and marketing practices. For combating the huge losses, proper post-harvest management and value addition are considered an effective solution. Therefore, it is of utmost necessity to enlighten farm workers, producers, managers of trade, and exporters on the scope of losses being experienced and their financial drawbacks to improve the issue and enhance their income. This study aims to encompass different value-added food products like Ready to serve drinks, fruit bars, jam, jelly, marmalade, squash, pickles, candy, fruit powders, etc., that can be prepared easily from different fruits, especially the underutilized fruits when they are available in bulk during their harvesting season. This will reduce post-harvest losses and make them available for consumption in the off-season.