| During the last years cultural changes have increased the demand of ready to eat food like fresh processed fruit and vegetables. Perspectives for Spanish market, particularly for the Murcia's Region are highly promising. Tomato and melon, two very important crops for Murcia's economy, are suitable for fresh processing. Controlled atmospheres (CA) as well as modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) and ozonized or calcium baths could be considered as useful tools to avoid both the loss of firmness and the microbial growth and increase their shelf life.;Quality was described by using physical, chemical, microbiological and sensory parameters. 'Amarillo' melon and 'Thomas' tomato were selected as the best cultivar for the fresh processed.;Wounding stress increased CO2 and C2H4 emission when compared to intact product. Quality of fresh processed tomato and melon was highly dependent on storage temperature. At 5°C metabolic activity was 1.5 to 2.4 times higher than at 0°C. At this temperature shelf life was up to 14 days. However, at 5°C even when CA and MAP were used, the products were marketable only until the tenth day of storage.;For melon the use of CA (4 kPa O2 + 15 kPa CO2) produced a 2.1 times decrease in the respiration rate, ethylene emission and the loss of firmness. For tomato atmospheres of 4 kPa O2 and 5 kPa CO2 decreased 4.6 to 5 times de ethylene emission.;Calcium baths at 60°C with chloride, propionate or lactate calcium highly reduced melon softness (which was only 8%). Microbial growth was also avoided by the use of calcium propionate.;During the wound-induced stress ozonized baths slightly increased the CO2 and C2H4 emission. Baths (3 to 5 min) were effective to inhibit the microbial growth, however, that effect decreased as the storage time increased. Applied as a gas (4 ppm O3 during 30 min), cyclic expositions and O3 concentrations over the mentioned were more effective for reducing microbial growth during storage. Both, O 3 applied as a gas or a solution, prevented fructose and glucose depletion. Use of neither O3 neither produced visible injuries nor transfer any strange flavour to the product. |
