Color analysis of thawed strawberry fruits Color is an important factor in the perception of strawberry
fruit quality. Fig. 3 shows the changes in color indices of thawed strawberries as given by L (lightness), a (redness) and b (yellowness), while Fig. 4 shows the hue angle and chroma. The obtained results show that the untreated fruits exhibited lighter color, more yellower (highest L and b values) and lower in redness (a value) than the pretreated frozen berries. These findings can be attributed to occurring color bleaching after storage as mentioned by. As expected, the pretreatment with Ca lactate dip had a slight enhancer affect in the color indices of thawed berries. Otherwise, the incorporation of citric acid in Ca lactate dip promoted the color improvement. The pretreatment with either citric acid or citric acid – Ca lactate combination was more effective for maintaining the color of frozen berries. Accordingly, the redness (a value) increased by only around 4% by Ca lactate dip compared to around 24% by citric acid dip and 31% by citric acid – Ca lactate combination dip relative to untreated berries.