Sniff your way to detecting mango ripeness, says U.K. scientist
British researchers have identified a way to sniff out the maturity of mangoes without the need of actually tasting the tropical fruit.
By pinpointing a unique chemical signature in the ripening of mangoes, scientists from Britain'Â’s University of Leicester say itÂ’'s entirely possible to define the fine line between a ripe and unripe fruit, via smell only.
The research could even led to an electronic hand-held device that could detect exactly the right time to harvest mangoes, and possibly other produce items.
“"Mangoes are one of the most important and popular tropical fruits with India producing approximately 40% of the world’'s supply,”" says lead researcher, Professor Paul Monks of the University of Leicester’'s Department of Chemistry.
"“The U.K. imports in excess of 60,000 [metric] tons of mangoes and the market is worth more than £70 million.
“"It is really important for people to be able to tell how ripe fruit is without having to taste it. This is important for fruit producers and supermarkets.”"
During the research ‘popular supermarket species’ of mangoes were used. In particular, the work showed that an increase in ester compounds (which can be likened to the smell of boiled candy called pear drops) was a marker of over ripe fruit.
The team designed an ‘'electronic nose'’ which can identify the volatiles released by mangoes during ripening. The process is called metabolite processing
"The information gained from the work could be used to develop small, hand-held electronic noses that could be deployed to assess fruit maturity prior to picking and thus determined the optimum point to harvest mature green mangoes.
"“This work has great potential for small devices to detect fruit ripeness and could be expanded to a range of different fruit. There are some real potential applications of this research for making devices to be able to assess ripeness non-destructively.
"“In terms of where we go from here, we are looking for commercial partners who may be interested in taking these sorts of ideas forward.”"
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