The Effect of a New Bionanocomposite Packaging Film on Postharvest Quality of Strawberry at Modified Atmosphere Condition

The highly perishable strawberry fruit ( Fragaria ananassa Duch.) has a short shelf life after harvesting limiting its consumption due to reduced freshness. A suitable packaging condition, proper storage, and carefully tuned atmosphere composition inside the package can preserve the quality and extend the shelf life of perishable fruits. In this study, packaging films based on polylactic acid (PLA) were prepared and evaluated under two different gas mixtures: MAP-A: 10% O 2 + 15% CO 2 + 75% N 2 and MAP-B: 15% O 2 + 10% CO 2 + 75% N 2 for strawberry fruit packaging. The effect of the mentioned treatments on physicochemical properties of fresh strawberry fruit including weight loss (WL), total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), TSS/TA, pH, and firmness (F) at 4 °C for 23 days of storage time were evaluated using a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design. The results showed that the F of strawberry decreased during the storage time, while WL, TSS/TA, and pH increased. The TSS and TA of all the treatments increased throughout the storage time and decreased at the end of the storage time. In addition, PLA/montmorillonite Cloisite 20A/Triacetin preserved the quality of the packaged fruits due to its lower water vapor permeability (5.31 × 10 −7 g −1 s −1 Pa −1 ) and lower oxygen transmission rate (25.6 cm 3 mm 1 m −2 day −1 ) compared to neat PLA and PLA/Triacetin films. Furthermore, the gas mixture of MAP-A was more suitable in comparison to MAP-B due to the higher CO 2 pressure and lower O 2 pressure inside packages. We can conclude that using nanocomposite film PLA/montmorillonite Cloisite 20A/Triacetin with modified atmosphere provides a more desirable condition for strawberry fruits storaging at a low temperature. Graphical Abstract