PRESS RELEASE

Wax coatings for fruit and vegetables
Shelf-life and Problems

Click on the image to download a print quality scan

An amazing variety of fruit and vegetables are often wax coated – from apples to parsnips and from chilli peppers to peaches, sweet potatoes, passion fruit and beyond.  The difficulty is that the coating often has to perform conflicting processes at the same time:- preventing water loss but allowing CO2 egress and oxygen ingress.  The optimum relationship between these is different for virtually every fruit or vegetable.

The real-world solution is to produce specific "designer" waxes for each variety and this requires measuring and matching the vapour permeability for water vapour, CO2 and Oxygen for each wax formulation, and then to quality control the waxes as they degrade over time and batch.  Versaperm has produced a version of its technology-leading permeability meter for this which can be used for both the development and the QC of fruit and vegetable coatings. Shelf lives can be doubled.

Post-harvest waste of fresh fruits and vegetables fall between 25 – 80% but it can be substantially reduced by optimising coatings which will boost shelf-life, quality and flavour.  Packaging, particularly MAP packaging, can improve this still further and can, again be developed and quality controlled using Versaperm's vapour permeability meter.  As can edible films.

The equipment can optionally measure permeability with respect to water vapour, oxygen, nitrogen, argon, CO2 and every other gas combination you could use.  It works not just for the coating materials by themselves, but also for coated produce, surprisingly these results are virtually never the same and are not usually even close as they vary with production methods and practices. 

The Versaperm equipment is fast and accurate to better than one part per million, (parts per billion for some materials and gases).  A new and extended sensor range can be used to measure vapour permeability with any usable gas or vapour.

The instruments are simple to use, have automated computerised control and can optionally handle several wax coatings or finished produce at a time.
As well as the Versaperm VI meter the company offers a permeability testing service - usually with a 24 hour turn around.    

ENDS

Please send any sales enquiries to Christopher Roberts, Versaperm Limited ,
10 Rawcliffe House, Howarth Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1AP, UK, Tel: +44 (0) 1628 777668,
e.mail info@versaperm.co.uk Web http://www.versaperm.co.uk

For further Press Information please contact Gerry Palmer @ the Palmer & Rose Partnership. Tel +44 (0) 1494 637499, e.mail gerry@palmer-rose.co.uk