Oranges were washed in sterile water
(200 ppm NaOCl), rinsed and dried. Then, three batches of oranges
were prepared: whole fruits, hand-peeled fruits and manually separated
segments. Approximately 200 g of sample was placed on
polystyrene trays, which were packaged in 20 30 cm plastic bags
(AMCOR P-Plus premade bags, antimist coated oriented polypropylene
film, AMCOR Flexibles Hispania S.A., Granollers, Barcelona,
Spain) of medium oxygen permeability [5200 cm3/(m2 24 h bar)
at 23 C and 0% relative humidity (RH)] under air atmosphere
and sealed by a Multivac vacuum machine (Wolferchweden, Germany).
The headspace gas concentration of CO2 (%) and O2 (%)
was stabilised at the second day of storage for peeled orange
(19% O2 and 1.60% CO2) and orange segments (19% O2 and 2.60%
CO2). Samples were stored at 4 C in darkness for 12 days. The initial
characteristics of orange fruit are shown in Table 1.