Benefits of Combined Treatment Approaches to Maintaining Fruit and Vegetable Quality.

The use of combined treatments to manage fruit and vegetable quality has been successfully applied in commercial practice, particularly for apples. This historical success is well documented. Unfortunately, the extensive use of combined treatments has not been adopted as a general principle to optimize produce quality, shelf life and safety. The thesis of this review is to discuss the basis for the effectiveness of combined treatment approaches and also discuss potential combined treatments that could significantly improve quality, shelf life and safety of a wide range of fruit and vegetable products. The use of molecular tools in the evaluation of synergistic physiological responses to combined treatments is also discussed.