Cornell University Tests Compare Types of Tray-Packaged Tomatoes For Shelf-Life Performance

A recent Study reports Continental's Plastic Tomato Trays with open end poly styrene film wraps scoring up to 50% higher than pulp trays and 30% higher than stretch film wrapped vacuum packs.

Tomatoes Tested & Scored for "performance"...firmness, ph(Acid) and color.

Cornell's Food Science Department conducted extensive testing and evaluation of the variations of methods for packaging tomatoes for retail marketing. A comparison of packs for determination of shelf life included Continental's Plastic's open-type recyclable polystyrene trays, formed paper pulp trays and clear plastic trays. Mature green Florida tomatoes were commercially repacked and wrapped with several film types, including polystyrene film, meat wrap stretch film with vacuum pack and also breathable stretch film.

Tests setup to simulate retail produce department Environment

Packaged tomatoes were held in an environment chamber at 65 degrees farenheight and 65% relative humidity under 24 hour fluorescent light. Duration of tests was set for nine days. Both the time and the test conditions were acceptable to agree satisfactorily with a typical retail produce department environment.

Wrapping Methods Evaluated

The unique open lattice configuration of Continental's Tomato Trays when combined with a polystyrene film wrapping that is open at the ends* produced the best shelf life scores when  compared to solid-based pulp trays or plastic trays that were fully encased in stretch film wrappings including vacuum packs. It would seem that the increased ventilation of circulating air contributes vitally to shelf life performance by use of open-end film wrapping and open lattice plastic trays.

(* efficient production line wrapping of this type is being widely achieved on the factory rebuilt Model FA Wrappers as supplied by Ed Schafer, Watson Associates, 800 Grove Rd., NJ 215-336-6433 Fax 215-467-9308)