Extra FRESH® Storage Tips



Tips for Storing Your Produce.
What do you do with your fruit and vegetables when you get home from the grocery store? Automatically put everything in the refrigerator? Never put any fruit in the refrigerator? And where in the refrigerator should you store vegetables? The crisper? On a shelf? Should you ever leave fruit in direct sunlight?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers when it comes to storing fruit and veggies. Each one is a little different, with some having different needs than the others. The main reason for eating fresh fruit and vegetables, aside from taste, is that they are rich in vitamins and minerals. But most lose those very things when kept at room temperature. On the other hand tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples will undergo rapid deterioration if stored in cold places.

There are a number of storage conditions that can affect the storage life of produce, including temperature, humidity and, of course, atmospheric ethylene. Each variety has its own preference.

However, there are some simple rules that you can follow, which when used alongside your Extra FRESH® disc will help add days to your produce life.

Separate fruit and vegetables in storage.
Generally most consumers believe that keeping produce in the refrigerator is going to improve storage life. Separate ethylene producing items from ethylene sensitive items for storage. In general, fruits give off more ethylene than vegetables, and vegetables are more sensitive to the harmful effects of ethylene.

For one thing, the effect of ethylene on aging is certainly slowed by the cold as the produce respiration rate is slowed down. But it is easy to think of exceptions to this assumption. For example, put spinach or kale/cabbage in the same bin as peaches or apples, and the greens will turn yellow and limp in just a couple of days.

If you have two crisper bins you should use one crisper bin for fruits and the other for vegetables. You can check which items are ethylene producers and which are ethylene sensitive by visiting our Produce Reference Guide.

One bad apple will spoil the lot.
Skin damaged or decayed produce will generate much higher levels of ethylene than normal. In addition, mould and fungal spores are easily transferred from one piece to another. You should sort through your produce before storing them in your fridge and discard any items that are decaying or damaged.

Store in the proper poly bag or in the open (lower humidity and allow for oxygen).
For those varieties that keep better in high humidity, it makes sense to store them in a produce bag after purchase. If the humidity stays too high, you can get some interesting, if not attractive, biological activity. Furthermore, produce is alive, so it must be allowed to breath. The poly bags that the grocery store supplies is not a good choice for storage because it can keep humidity too high and excludes oxygen. Produce suffocates when stored in these bags. They are provided for transport and are not intended for storage. There are produce bags on the market that are permeable to oxygen and ethylene, while maintaining proper humidity that some produce needs.

By keeping your produce in the correct bags will help to stop them from dehydrating, particularly products like leafy greens and others that do not have an outer skin of their own. Whilst, the Extra FRESH® disc will take care of the atmospheric ethylene.

Don't soak away nutrients.
Any toxic residues from agricultural chemicals and fertilisers may reside in these outer leaves. So you should always wash your produce in clean water before use. However, make sure that you don't soak your produce for too long as this drains the nutrient out of the skin.

Remove toxins.
You should cut off the tops and outermost leaves of leafy vegetables such as lettuce and cabbage before putting them in the fridge. Any toxic residues from agricultural chemicals and fertilisers may reside in these outer leaves. Remember to always wash your produce in clean water before use.

By ensuring you wash your produce and refrigerate it once home, coupled with your Extra FRESH® disc will help add days to your produce life and ensure you eat healthily.

Have a low ethylene atmosphere.
If the produce is ripe, keeping it away from ethylene helps maintain freshness.

Each variety of produce has its own ethylene sensitivity profile. Some are ethylene mitters, some are damaged by it, and some are both. The only way to be sure that you are not storing incompatible varieties together is to eliminate the ethylene entirely!

The refrigerator may be good at maintaining a storage temperature and humidity for produce that should be stored there. But, it creates a problem for any ethylene sensitive produce. It traps the ethylene generated by anything in the refrigerator, allowing it to accumulate to damaging levels.

Refrigerators are designed to force its cool air to all parts of the box. So, the produce drawers are not really isolated from each other. As a result storing in different drawers is only marginally effective.

If you use the produce bags, part of their function is to prevent ethylene buildup around its contents by allowing the ethylene out of the bag. But that leaves the rest of the refrigerator with the accumulating ethylene. The answer is to remove all ethylene as it is generated by using your Extra FRESH® disc!!