Dose response curves of essential oil compounds in postharvest spoilage prevention of fresh produce

Postharvest losses (PHLs) of agricultural produce during storage distribution and retail is acause of significant economic and environmental burden. Microbial causes of PHLs whichincludes fungal spoilage is an open challenge that is largely lacking safe and effective solutions.A conservative estimate puts the economic burden from microbial spoilage at more than$10B/year worldwide.Compared to the synthetic antimicrobial agents which can have harmful side effects variousnatural essential oils (EO) of plant origin are generally a safe alternative for suppressingmicrobial spoilage. Their antimicrobial activity has been well established throughout scientificliterature. Their potential for extending shelf life of produce has also been demonstrated byindependent researchers and by our internal testing. Motivated by the scale of PHLs and theimportance of this problem our aim is to develop and commercialize safe effective technologiesand products to reduce the PHLs of fresh produce based on natural EO compounds (EOCs) ofplant origin with antimicrobial properties.Our focus for this Phase I effort is on vapor phase dose response curve characterization of EOCformulations developed by our team. The objectives of the proposed research are 1) to developthe experimental set up and techniques to control and measure the gas-phase concentrations ofEOCs 2) to perform testing on fruits to study spoilage delay as a function of EOCconcentrations and 3) to analyze and document the results.The results of this research will beused as primary inputs for the follow-on product development activities for Phase II.