Postharvest Management of Fresh Produce : Recent Advances

Postharvest Management of Fresh Produce: Recent Advances critically addresses the latest issues, challenges, and technological advancements in postharvest management of fresh commodities, especially fruits, nuts, and vegetables. The book covers the intriguing correlation of preharvest treatments, maturity indices and postharvest operations that significantly affect the postharvest quality of fresh produce. Further topics include packaging, logistics and storage technologies, the role of microbial communities, and 'omics' strategies in postharvest disease management. Special attention is given to the latest trends of nanotechnology, internet of things (IoTs), and blockchain technologies in food supply chain management of perishable products.

The book is a great resource for young and experienced professionals in academia, industry, and UG/PG students to explore a diversified range of topics in postharvest strategies relevant to food processing, food technologies, agro-processing and quality control.

Dr. Singh is Associate Professor in the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship & Management (NIFTEM), An Institute of National Importance (INI), under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India. Dr. Singh has obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Biotechnology, Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, India while working in the Indian Agricultural Research Institute-National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms (ICAR-NBAIM), Mau, India completed his post graduate training at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR), Pusa campus, New Delhi on Genetic Diversity of Barley Landraces by using RAPD markers. Dr. Singh has authored more than 100 research papers and book chapters in journals and books of international repute. Dr. Singh edited six books published by Springer and Elsevier. He is a member of the Association of Microbiologist of India (AMI), the Asian PGPR society for Sustainable Agriculture, the Mushroom Society of India (MSI), and the Indian Science Congress (ISC). He received several prestigious awards from agencies such as DST, New Delhi and other agencies in the field of Microbial Diversity. Dr Singh has served as guest editors in many journals like Frontiers in Microbiology, Biology-MDPI, Journal of Fungi-MDPI, Frontiers in Molecular biosciences etc. His major research areas are in postharvest disease management using natural agents and improving the shelf life of fresh commodities to reduce food loss happening during the food supply chain.

Dr. Shekhar Agnihotri Ph.D. (Nanotechnology) is currently working as an Assistant Professor at National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Sonepat (Haryana) under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI), Government of India. With a unique blend of science and engineering disciplines, Dr. Shekhar comes with two postgraduate degrees, MS (Biochemistry) and M.Tech (Biochemical Engineering) from IIT-BHU and has worked in a joint collaborative research at IIT Kanpur. Later he completed his PhD in Nanotechnology from IIT Bombay receiving the prestigious IIT-B Excellence Award for Best PhD thesis. Dr. Shekhar is the recipient of DST young scientist award, Indo-Japan Young Fellowship Award, Gold access award (Royal Society of Chemistry, UK), and TIET Best Performer Award. His expertise lies in the area of nano-biotechnology, bioprocess engineering and enzyme technology and has published in high impact factor journals. Dr. Shekhar pursues interests in integrating immobilized enzymes and nano-supports for generating value-added products from agro-waste, novel packaging and smart sensing technologies.

Dr. Singh is working as Assistant Professor at Pachhunga University College (PUC) campus of Mizoram Central University, Mizoram, India. She has completed her doctorate in 2018 from Mizoram University, India in plant sciences and worked on the pharmaceutical potential of selected traditional medicinal plants. Dr. Singh has 8 years of research experience and has published several research papers in national and international journals having high impact factor like Scientific reports, BMC complementary and alternative medicine, frontiers in plant sciences, etc. Dr. Singh has awarded for her work by several agencies while presenting her research work in India and abroad. Her expertise lies in the areas of utilization of traditional medicinal plants for sustainable development, secondary metabolites extraction and documentation of traditional medicinal pants. Dr. Singh is running one externally funded project to explore the pharmaceutical potential of some selected traditional medicinal plants located in North East India.

Dr. Vijai Kumar Gupta holds a doctoral degree in Microbiology from Dr RML Avadh University, India. Currently, he is working as Senior Fellow and Group Leader at Center for Safe and Improved Foods & Biorefining and Advanced Materials Research Center, SRUC, Edinburgh, UK. Dr Gupta is an expert in Biomass Valorisation, Microbial Engineering Biotechnologies, Enzyme and Bioprocessing Technologies, Bioactive Natural Products, and Functional Microbiome. Overall focus of his research is on developing bioprocess technologies to valorise available bioresources for the production of value-added biochemicals, bioproducts, and fuels and their potential to address the key challenges in agri-food-pharma-environment importance. He has published several peer-reviewed publications, 48 book chapters and 42 books in his hands.