Bell pepper (cv. Swarna) fruits of uniform size, without defects
or diseases were hand-picked at their commercial maturity
(firm and bright green) during the month of June from PFDC
farm of Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal,
India and transferred to packaging laboratory immediately.
They were visually inspected for freedom from defects and
blemishes and non-uniform, damaged, poor quality peppers
were removed. Peppers were disinfected with sodium hypochlorite
(100 ppm) solution in water at room temperature
(25 8C) for 5 min. The washed fruits were air-dried at ambient
102 f o o d p a c k a g i n g a n d s h e l f l i f e 1 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 1 0 1 – 1 1 2temperature for 30 min to remove surface moisture before the
experiment began. The adopted hygiene rules and low storage
temperatures are consisted with the food safety regulations
(Gil, Allende, & Selma, 2011; Gonzale´z-Aguilar, Ayala-Zavala,
Ruiz-Cruz, Acedo-Fe´lix, & Diaz-Cinco, 2004).