Natural losses from vegetable and fruit products in cold storage

Natural losses from fruit and vegetable products stored in cold conditions are investigated. A mathematical model describing heat and mass transfer processes taking place during storage time is presented and the resulting governing equations are solved using Software Mathcad7. The relative humidity of the ventilating air and the temperature field of an apple bulk are found for different cold storage conditions; namely the initial air relative humidity and air flow rate. It was found that the relative humidity of the ventilating air approaches a limiting value as the apple bulk depth increases up to 4.2 m. In addition, when the relative humidity is larger than the equilibrium relative humidity value, an increase in the ventilating air rate reduces the losses of the product during the period of its storage while larger losses occur when the relative humidity values are lower than the equilibrium one.