Good results with PLA for packaging minimally processed celery

Due to recent trends in healthy eating on the go, fresh ? cut produce consumption has been on the rise. Celery is a popular fresh - cut item which is often sold as sticks and used in a wide variety of culinary applications. Unfortunately, fresh - cut celery is highly perishable and undergoes several modes of deterioration. In order to increase the storage quality and extend the shelf - life of fresh - cut celery, the effect of the packaging gas compositions and materials were studied. Fresh - cut celery was packaged in two extreme plastics: either polyethylene terephthalate (PET) coated with aluminum oxide (high barrier) or poly lactic acid (PLA) (low barrier) bags with the following gas compositions: 99% O2, 5% O2/15% CO2, or air. A descriptive sensory panel (n=9) was used to evaluate the quality of fresh - cut celery based on structured nine - point scales: texture (flexibility (1 ? very crisp, 9 - very flexible)), color (1 - lightest, 9 - darkest), off - flavor (1 - no off - flavor, 9 - pronounced off - flavor) and overall appearance (1 - excellent, 9 - extremely poor). Samples were evaluated after 0, 3, 7, 10 and 14 days. After 14 days, the celery packaged with 5% O2/15% CO2 in high barrier PET was significantly more flexible than the samples that were packaged in PLA. The darkening of the green color in celery is possibly attributed to gas composition of 5% O2/15% CO2 as these treatments ?received the highest color scores. The off flavor was found to be the highest in the celery in the high barrier PET material. The overall appearance of the celery showed that all samples packaged in the high barrier PET material were evaluated as being poorer than those in PLA. Based on the sensory analysis results, fresh - cut celery packaged in PLA with gas compositions of 99% O2 or air were shown to retain the best quality after 2 weeks of storage. PLA is a biodegradable packaging material that has positive potential for applications in fresh - cut celery and other produce. SourcesEVALUATION OF PACKAGED CELERY STICKS USING QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTIVE SENSORY ANALYSISGartner, H.(*), Page, N., Harte, J., Gonzalez - Buesa, J. and Almenar, E. ealmenar@msu.eduSchool of Packaging, Michigan State University, USACA MA 2013, XI International Controlled & Modified Atmosphere Research Conference, Trani (Italy), 3-7 June 2013 The cheese stuffed celery sticks are by www.sheckys.com ?