Fresh fruits and vegetables have always made an important contribution to the human diet. Fruits and vegetables provide a variety of colors, shapes, flavors, aromas, and textures, but their full nutritional importance has only been explored and recognized recently as a result of the rising public awareness of food quality and safety. Furthermore, increased consumption of fruits and vegetables has been associated with a reduced risk of cancer and heart diseases in many epidemiological studies, thus highlighting their beneficial health properties.

Traditionally, fruits and vegetables’ ‘qualities’ refer to extrinsic characteristics such as size, shape, color, and firmness. These visual attributes, together with sensorics parameters such as scent and taste, affect consumers’ acceptance, and thus have a direct economic implication. However, in recent years there has been a growing awareness of the intrinsic factors of nutritional and functional attributes related to phytonutrient content, such as minerals, vitamins, dietary fibers, and other phytochemicals that determine the nutritional values of fresh produce and directly or indirectly affect consumers’ health. These physicochemical properties are determined by genotypic and agro-environmental factors but they also dynamically change after the product has left the field, and are highly dependent on postharvest handling [1].

This article belongs to the Special Issue Postharvest Storage Techniques and Quality Evaluation of Fruits and Vegetables