Plate Nº 87 · recorded November 10, 2026
Chemistry & MaterialsReported finding
Why 25% of Fruit Is Lost—and How Packaging Could Change
About 25% of fruit is lost after harvest. A 2026 review links packaging materials to fruit physiology and identifies the barriers to intelligent, self-healing packaging.
By Priya Raman4 min read789 words
In brief
- About 25% of fruit is lost in the postharvest supply chain.
- A chitosan/nanocellulose coating limited grape weight loss to 15.5% after 18 days, versus 40.4% for controls.
- A Pt/CeO₂-P catalyst removed more than 99.9% of ethylene and kept bananas firm for 14 days.
- A machine-learning sensor array determined fruit ripeness with 99.09% accuracy.
- Cellulose nanocrystals cost roughly 13 times as much as polypropylene; the review appeared in 2026.
By Priya Raman
About 25% of fruit is lost in the postharvest (after-harvest) supply chain, according to a 2026 review of functional packaging.
A banana continues to respire (release energy through chemical reactions) after harvest and responds to ethylene (a gaseous plant hormone). Its living tissue remains vulnerable to softening, browning, water loss and decay, while inadequate preservation, transport or storage compounds the problem.
Conventional petroleum-based plastic packaging acts merely as a passive physical barrier. It cannot respond to the fruit’s changing physiological status, or biological condition.
Functional packaging takes a different approach. It modifies the microenvironment (the immediate physical and chemical environment around the fruit) and releases active agents. Those agents intervene in respiration, ethylene signaling (chemical communication involving the hormone), oxidative stress (damage from excess reactive molecules) and microbial growth.
The review addresses a gap in postharvest preservation research: systematic analyses of how different materials and strategies affect how fruit functions remain scarce, as does a clear route into industrial practice.
A team from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published the paper in Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety in 2026.
Its organizing framework links material structure, physicochemical properties (physical and chemical characteristics) and fruit physiological responses. In plain terms, a material’s internal structure shapes how it performs, and those properties influence the fruit’s biological response.
What does functional packaging change?
The review examines seven strategies, each acting on a different feature of preservation:
- Moisture regulation manages water movement between the fruit and its package.
- Gas regulation adjusts the gas environment that surrounds the fruit.
- Edible coatings add a protective layer to the fruit’s surface.
- Antioxidant and nutritional quality regulation supports antioxidant activity and helps preserve nutritional quality.
- Antimicrobial packaging limits microbial growth.
- Intelligent packaging uses sensing components to monitor conditions inside the package.
- Shelf-life prediction estimates how long fruit should remain suitable for use or sale.
How do these methods perform in reported tests?
Three examples in the review show the scale of reported results. They come from different systems and do not constitute a head-to-head comparison.
- Grapes: A chitosan/nanocellulose coating, combining chitosan (a sugar-based polymer) with nanocellulose (cellulose fibers at the nanoscale), reduced weight loss to 15.5% after 18 days of storage. The control lost 40.4%.
- Bananas: A catalyst containing platinum, cerium oxide and phosphorus (Pt/CeO₂-P) removed more than 99.9% of ethylene and kept bananas firm for 14 days.
- Ripeness: A sensor array coupled to machine learning (methods that learn patterns from data) determined fruit ripeness with 99.09% accuracy.
The review links moisture and gas regulation through shared microstructural parameters (features of a material’s internal structure). These parameters can create synergies, where one change improves several outcomes, or trade-offs, where one gain comes at another’s expense.
Fruit type dictates which functional layer deserves priority. Yuci Li and colleagues write that “no universally optimal solution exists.” A package suited to one fruit may require a different functional priority or release profile for another.
What still blocks industrial use?
Two approaches remain at the laboratory or early-prototype stage: stimulus-responsive metal–organic framework (MOF) carriers and intelligent packaging that uses artificial intelligence (AI). MOFs are porous crystalline materials that can carry active agents; stimulus-responsive versions change the timing of their release in response to a trigger.
Several obstacles delay wider use:
- Structural stability: Insufficient microstructural stability can prevent designs from retaining their structure.
- Safety: Assessments lag behind new designs, leaving questions about their use unresolved.
- Release control and scale: Precise release remains difficult to achieve without compromising cost or scalability, meaning reliable production at industrial volume.
- Cost: Cellulose nanocrystals cost roughly 13 times as much as polypropylene, a type of plastic.
- Regulation: Regulatory frameworks diverge across China, the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions.
What might researchers build next?
The authors propose prioritizing low-cost, self-healing bio-based materials, meaning materials derived from biological sources that can repair damage to their own structure.
They also recommend combining flexible sensors, radio-frequency identification (RFID, a wireless identification technology) and machine learning in closed-loop intelligent packaging. Li and colleagues propose a “sensing–communication–prediction” architecture to connect measurements, data transmission and forecasts, supporting sustainable, high-performance postharvest preservation.
The paper, “Advanced Functional Packaging Strategies for Postharvest Fruit Preservation: From Physiological Regulation to Intelligent Monitoring,” carries the DOI 10.1111/1541-4337.70671. Its central conclusion urges researchers to advance materials and sensing together while treating cost, safety, regulation and manufacturing scale as equally essential.
For now, the goal is a package that can sense, predict and scale, rather than one universal design for every fruit.
via phys.org/rss-feed/ (Source)
More from Priya Raman
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Senior reporter covering people, launches and day-to-day practice in general science news at SciBeat.
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