engleski

The overview of Croatian post-harvest fruit sector

Croatia is a net fruit-importing country where fruit production comprises 3.5% of total agricultural production. The top two fruit crops are apples (34% of fruit production) and Satsuma mandarins (28% of total fruit production). The Croatian fruit sector is characterized by a high number of small producers with lower access to modern technology. Such a situation results in lower yields, especially with apples. The Croatian fruit market is price-sensitive since part of the budget for food is 30% as compared with the EU, where the food budget is 12%. The fruit value chain is dominated by foreign supermarket chains, dictating higher adoption of commercial standards. Compared with production capacity, storage capacity is inadequate, especially modern CA storage for apple. Some positive developments are seen in recent years by an initiative to build 20 storage centers, mostly funded by the EU. Main postharvest problems in apples are decay, bitter pit, and superficial scald. In Satsuma mandarin, the main problems are chilling injury and decay. Besides access to modern storage, an even bigger problem is the lack of postharvest knowledge. However, larger producers and some small producers are oriented toward modernization and adoption of innovative technologies such as thermotherapy which showed promising results in controlling decay and superficial scald.

postharvest technology, value chain, storage, capacity, physiological disorders, postharvest loss

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