Abstract
Fruits and vegetables consumption contribute in human nutrition through the provision of essential nutrients for growth and good health. However, farmers, marketers, and consumers encounter major problems of keeping fresh commodities such as Dwarf ger. marglobe Tomato fruits to increase their shelf life due to quick degeneration and decomposition of the produce at storage. Demand in the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables increased across the world which comes with major concern in storage of these perishables. The objective of the study was to develop Charcoal Evaporative Cooler (CEC), and compare with House Hold Fridge (HHF) and Control Sample of Dwarf ger. marglobe Tomato fruits grown in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region of Ghana. A total of thirty six fruits without any bruises and decay were used for the experiment. The tomato fruits were divided into three to represent the treated and untreated samples. The respective weights of the fruits were taken after natural air drying and monitored at Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was the experimental design used with three replications. Data on weight, decay severity and Colour changes of the produce were analyzed using MiniTab version 16 The results obtained on percentage weight reduction of fresh tomato fruits stored in Charcoal Evaporative Cooler House Hold Fridge and control temperature (CT) showed that, the latter recorded the highest average weight loss of 15.93% compared with HHF 4.68% and CEC 4.84% when the experiment was terminated. Storage for an experimental period of ten (10) days. Twelve (12) fruits were stored in the Charcoal Evaporative Cooler (CEC), twelve fruits were also stored in the House Hold Fridge (HHF) and twelve fruits were left at room temperature as control. The results also indicated that the least average colour of 4.5 was produced by fruits stored in Charcoal Evaporative cooler compared with average values of 5.4 and 6.0 for house hold fridge and control sample respectively. The trend on the decay severity demonstrated that the House Hold Fridge which produced 0.3 decay could reduce decay better than Charcoal Evaporative Cooler with 1.2 and Control sample with severity of 2.7 .The fact that the performance trend of the experiment on the use of Charcoal Evaporative Cooler on storage of fresh tomatoes could reduce decay, average weight, colour and maintain freshness of tomato fruits, it was safely concluded that, adoption of Charcoal Evaporative Cooler for cooling and extension of shelf life of tomato fruits at small scale and household levels for consumers would be appropriate in Wa Municipality