Studding the Precooling Process of Apple in the Commercial and the New Designed Package

Precooling is an important process that carried out on the fruits such as Apple due to extend the shelf life. In this research, the new package was designed and constructed. Then, the effect of various performance parameters during the precooling process such as the airflow rate and types of packages was studied on the 7/8 th cooling time and cooling uniformity to select and introduce the best package. The results indicated that the Polyethylene package had the lowest 7/8 th cooling time; however, it is not suitable for export of apple due to the high moisture loss during the precooling (23-26%). The highest cooling time and lowest cooling uniformity was related to the commercial package because of its unsuitable vents deign. The results showed that the cooling time of fruit in the new designed of package decreased 30.5 and 25.9 % as compere with the commercial package in the airflow rate of 0.5 and L s-1kgp-1, respectively. In addition, the cooling process was uniformity and the standard error between the 7/8 th cooling time of fruit was 19.6 % lower than that one for the commercial package. Increasing the airflow rate from 0.5 to 1.5 L s-1kgp-1 led to decreasing the 7/8 th cooling time in the range of 16.8 to 39.7 % in the all packages. Because of the lowest moisture loss, highest cooling uniformity and lowest cooling time, the new designed package was introduced as the best packages to cooling process of apple and its cold storage.