The effect of post harvest handling on selected native food plants

Abstract

A commercial issue currently facing native plant food producers and food processors, and identified
by the industry itself, is that of delivering quality products consistently and at reasonable cost to end
users based on a sound food technology and nutrition platform.
A literature survey carried out in July 2001 by the DPI&F’s Centre for Food Technology, Brisbane in
collaboration with the University of Queensland to collect the latest information at that time on the
functional food market as it pertained to native food plants, indicated that little or no work had been
published on this topic.
This project addresses two key RIRDC sub program strategies: to identify and evaluate processes or
products with prospects of commercial viability and to assist in the development of integrated
production, harvesting, processing and marketing systems. This project proposal also reflects a key
RIRDC R&D issue for 2002-2003; that of linking with prospective members of the value chain.
The purpose of this project was to obtain chemical data on the post harvest stability of functional
nutritional components (bio actives) in commercially available, hand harvested bush tomato and
Kakadu plum.
The project concentrated on evaluating bioactive stability as a measure of ingredient quality.