An effective preserving strategy for strawberries by constructing pectin/starch coatings reinforced with functionalized eggshell fillers

Hao Xu; Yihao Huang; Kuang He; Ziqiang Lin; David Julian McClements; Yao Hu; Hao Cheng; Xinwen Peng; Zhengyu Jin; Long Chen

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139314

An effective preserving strategy for strawberries by constructing pectin/starch coatings reinforced with functionalized eggshell fillers

Food Chem. 2024 Apr 10:450:139314. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139314. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Hao Xu¹, Yihao Huang², Kuang He², Ziqiang Lin², David Julian McClements³, Yao Hu⁴, Hao Cheng¹, Xinwen Peng⁵, Zhengyu Jin¹, Long Chen⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Food Safety and Quality Control in Jiangsu Province, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China.
² School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China.
³ Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA.
⁴ Department of Nutrition and Health, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China.
⁶ School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Food Safety and Quality Control in Jiangsu Province, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China. Electronic address: longchen@jiangnan.edu.cn.

PMID: 38636383
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139314

Abstract

Food waste occurs frequently worldwide, though hunger and malnutrition issues have received global attention. Short-term spoilage of perishable foods causes a significant proportion of food waste. Developing simple, green, and low-cost strategies to preserve the freshness of perishable foods is important to address this issue and improving food safety. By using strawberries as the model perishable fruit, this study reported a pectin/carboxy methyl starch sodium (PC) based coating using epigallocatechin gallate-loaded eggshell powder (ES@EGCG) as the functional fillers. In comparison to PC coating, the PC-ES@EGCG coating displayed much-enhanced performance, such as enhanced mechanical (2 folds) and barrier (water vapor & oxygen) properties. This composite coating reduced the weight loss of strawberries from over 60% to around 30% after 7-day storage. Coated strawberries exhibit better freshness retention, which achieves the purpose of preserving strawberries during storage. This study provided a cost-effective and eco-friendly coating strategy for reducing food waste.

Keywords: Coating; Eggshell powder; Pectin; Preservation; Strawberry.