Foggia Territorial unit

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Starting from April 2017, URT of ISPA-CNR at “Centro Servizi del Distretto Agroalimentare del Tavoliere” (CS-DAT), is carrying out research on agro-food and providing sustainably innovation and technology transfer for local food industries.

The Research Unit started working on projects related to the Postharvest Handling of Fresh Produce, and research activities are carried out in the following laboratories that were set up at CS-DAT::

  1. Processing Lab: in this laboratory fruits and vegetables are processed for fresh market and fresh-cut industries. The large spaces allow to scale-up the protocols optimized for the industries, such as the application of chemical and physical pre-treatments, innovative washing, cutting and drying operations. In addition, this lab is equipped with gas mixing facilities and packaging tools for the application of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP).
  2. Physical and Physiological Lab: these spaces are equipped with texturometer, colorimeter, viscosimeter and digital photocamera for the evaluation of sensory and physical quality attributes (texture, color, viscosity and appearance). For the measurement of physiological parameters (respiration activity, ethylene production) the lab is equipped with gas-chromatograph for the evaluation of CO2 production, ethylene detector and gas analyzers. In addition, 4 refrigerators allow to manage 5 different temperatures within the same trial.
  3. Chemical Lab: this lab is equipped with several devices for the extraction and the evaluation of the main chemical and nutritional compounds (sugars, phenols, ammonia) of fruits and vegetables, and for the evaluation of the enzymatic activity.
  4. Lab of Food Microbiology: this lab will be dedicated to the evaluation of microbial quality of fresh and fresh-cut produce. Currently the lab is equipped with two Microbiological Safety Cabinets, lab glassware and large operational spaces.   
  5. Scaling-up Prototypes Lab: it is a huge space dedicated to the optimization and validation of semi-industrial prototype machines for food companies, especially for fresh and fresh-cut industries. Currently a validation trial of an innovative shipping container prototype, for the transportation of fresh produce under controlled atmosphere (Project CONTINNOVA, funded by Apulia Region) is carried out.