Four Postharvest Specialists from the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center traveled to Sarajevo, October 24-28, to present a week-long Postharvest Technology training.  Drs. Beth Mitcham, Marita Cantwell, Mary Lu Arpaia and Michael Reid presented 39 instructional sessions over a three-and-a-half day period.  Zdenec Svec from the Czech Republic also presented a talk focusing on regional marketing and trade issues.  The training session was followed by a 1-1/2 day field tour visiting a number of postharvest processing facilities. The training was the result of a herculean effort led by Filip Stoyanovic, Director of a USAID Regional Competitiveness Initiative, and supported by eleven USAID projects as well as funding from the governments...

In late June we sent an email out to our 2009 and 2010 Postharvest Technology Short Course participants.  The Postharvest Technology Short Course is a week-long intensive study of a broad spectrum of postharvest topics, including lectures and labs, followed by an optional week-long tour of postharvest facilities around California. We were curious about the continuing impact made on those who had attended the course.  We especially wanted to know if the information they learned had made a difference in their business practices, and if the course continued to provide an ongoing benefit to those who attended.

When asked if the information learned in the lectures was helpful to them currently, 87% of those who responded...

There was a heightened sense of camaraderie and interaction amongst the participants who attended the September 2011 workshop.  The workshop, coordinated and facilitated by Dr. Marita Cantwell, was structured so that there were many opportunities for sharing challenging fresh-cut situations, and brainstorming solutions.  

One dynamic session was the "Fresh-cut Products Shelf Life" demonstration, in which the storage time and temperature for more than 20 fresh-cut products was evaluated.  Considering color, general appearance, smell, and texture, participants ranked each item to see if they could detect the differences.



Because the content for this workshop is significantly updated each...

What got me started on this contribution is a book I recently read, called “Hungry Planet” by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio.  It photo-chronicles what an average family from different regions around the world eats in a week.  Fascinating reading, but not the topic of this blog, just the inspiration.

I’m writing about food waste, specifically fresh fruits and vegetables.  First let’s look at the facts.  In a 2011 Food and Agriculture-commissioned report, it was found that “Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year—approximately 1.3 billion tons—gets lost or wasted.”  The report does distinguish between loss and waste, pointing out that losses, which occur in production, harvest,...