Bruise Damage Susceptibility of Pomegranates

During the past couple of decades, commercial cultivation of pomegran-ate (Punica granatum L.) fruit has become more prevalent throughout semi-temperate and sub-tropical fruit regions of the world. Pomegranate consumption has increased noticeably, in part due to the distinctive sensory and nutritional qualities of the fruit, as well as its potential health and medicinal advantages from its high concentration of antioxidants and health-promoting phytonutrients. None-theless, poor storage and handling practices are causing fruit quality loss in the global pomegranate industry. Mechanical damage, specifically bruising that occurs between harvesting and consumption, has become a major contributing factor to the declining market value and quality loss of many fruits, including pomegranates. This chapter will provide an overview of the pomegranate industry, including its global significance, production, trade, consumption, and nutritional value. The coverage has been expanded to include pomegranate fruit bruising—the causes, mechanisms of bruising, and economic significance. This chapter has also shed light on the factors that contribute to pomegranate fruit bruise damage, from preharvest to harvest to postharvest. This chapter also covers the measurement and analysis of pomegranate fruit damage, with a focus on the methods used to investigate into pomegranate fruit damage, with emphasis on methodologies to simulate fruit bruising, analysis, and measurement procedures, as well as the assumptions made to fit the real-time settings. The review acknowledged recent advancements in opera-tions and handling equipment in the pomegranate industry’s modern harvest and postharvest handling system. As a result, future research directions have been outlined in this chapter, including the development of novel techniques to simulate bruising and, later, near-accurate bruise measurement methods to enable real-time simulation and quantification of bruise damage both in situ and ex situ.