Bilayer edible coating with chitosan and wax extended shelf life and maintained quality of tomatoes at ambient storage

Tomato, a widely consumed fruit vegetable rich in neutraceuticals, faced significant loss during ambient storage and chilling injury in refrigerated storage, which resulted in poor shelf life. Thus, the present experiment was conducted with red ripe tomato cv. Samrudhi to study the influence of chitosan (2%), wax and carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC 3%), single or bilayer coating on shelf life and quality at ambient storage. Results showed that tomatoes coated with chitosan 2%+wax had minimum weight loss (4.57%) and fruit decay (9.58%), whereas TSS: acid ratio (13.66), ascorbic acid (15.28 mg/100 g), and lycopene (24.76 μg/g) contents were found reasonably high at 15 DAS compared to other treatments and caused average shelf life of 28.67 days. However, fruits coated with chitosan 2%+CMC 3% also had high shelf life (24.46 days) compared to control (15.25 days).