Cold Storage and Temperature Management of Olive Fruit: The Impact on Fruit Physiology and Olive Oil Quality—A Review

Abstract

Cold storage of olive fruit has been the subject of study for over more than 50 years. From the 1990s on, an increasing amount of knowledge is build-up about the impact of the conservation on the physiological response of the fruit as well as on the quality of the extracted oil therefrom. This review offers a comprehensive synopsis of this research, discusses the most important influential factors and summarizes the results on the influence of the studied parameters on both the fruit and the oil. Currently, changing climatic conditions, new harvesting techniques and a more demanding consumer market are triggering the need to broaden this strict focus on conservation. A more dynamic view on the effects of temperature from the moment the fruit is harvested up to the oil extraction process, reveals the necessity to manage this crucial influential factor more diversely. An overview of how this management can take form is structured through a focus on the different phases of the postharvest processing and the widely different harvesting scales. Future prospects of research are presented based on the actual state of the art of cold storage research as well as on the necessities that come forward from a broader fruit temperature management perspective.