NEWS AND RESEARCH UNIKEN August 2003 • 7

She’s apples – fruit grower hits on technique for preserving fresh produce
by Mary O’Malley
Imagine a durian without the smell, a potato that comes peeled for the pot or fruit salad that doesn’t wither in the fridge overnight.
    Life for the convenience shopper is about to become even easier, thanks to the innovative work of a citrus grower and the research skills of a UNSW professor.
    Fruit grower Rhonda Selleck, from Barham, NSW, has developed natural formulae and techniques that increase the life of peeled-andpackaged fresh produce by up to six weeks.
    While pre-cut fruit and vegetables are popular with consumers who want healthy, convenient fast food, they currently last only a week on supermarket shelves.
    This new patented process called Flavotec provides a natural coating that hinders the potential for moulds, yeasts and bacteria once the skin is removed.
    Michael Wootton, adjunct professor in the school of chemical sciences, has advised on technical and food safety issues during the past three years of research and development.
    He says most competing technology is either specialised packing extending the shelf life to a maximum 10 days or gels and coatings which affect taste and texture.		     “I was very impressed with this product when Rhonda and her husband David brought it to me,” he says. “Quite how she arrived at this innovation I have no idea.”
    Selleck credits her interest in health and nutrition and a desire to help fruit growers whose crops often are rejected on purely aesthetic grounds.
    Buyers demand flawless fruit of an ideal shape and colour. With Flavotec expanding the market for pre-cut fruit and vegetables, it doesn’t matter if skins are marked or pitted or the fruit is an odd shape.
    Supermarkets, airlines, hotels, hospitals and nursing and retirement homes will benefit from the technique, says Wootton.
    “Consumers get food that is no mess, no fuss. Supermarkets reduce shrinkage waste by having a product with a longer shelf life and growers are able to sell perfectly good fruit that would otherwise be rejected because of flaws such as a mark on the skin.”
    The Flavotec process also increases the time available for exporting fresh produce to overseas markets.		 Originally developed to extend the life of citrus fruits, the technology has since been developed to include every fruit and vegetable except the banana.
    Several products based on the technology are about to be launched commercially. They include a natural avocado paste spread, peeled packaged potatoes and odourless durians.
    Extensive trials have been conducted on the durian, a fruit loved in Asia for its taste but loathed for its pungent smell. In fact, durians are banned in some tourist hotels.
    “When the durian ripens and falls from the tree, the shell cracks and within approximately three days the fruit goes to water,” says Selleck.
    “I’ve come up with a topical formula that stops the shell cracking and removes the smell,” she says. “We have another formula to apply to the flesh of the durian which maintains the texture, colour and taste of the durian without the smell.”
    The next step is to see how the durian coating fares in tropical Asian conditions. A research trip has been planned for later this year.
Happiness? It’s all relative says Nobel prize winner
Daniel Kahneman.
Nobel Laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman told a packed audience at the Clancy Auditorium last month that people don’t know how happy they are because happiness is relative.
    A professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, Kahneman is known for his work on hedonic psychology – defined as the study of pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. He won the 2002 Nobel prize for economics.		 “I’m interested in developing a science of experience that would actually try to measure what is going on in life as it is lived and not necessarily as it is evaluated retrospectively,” he said in his lecture, entitled Toward a Science of Wellbeing.
    The free public address was part of the Joint International Conference on Cognitive Science, hosted by the faculty of arts and social sciences.