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This work focuses on biodegradable packaging and edible coatings applied to fresh-cut fruits and vegetables and their effects on the product quality. Practical applications are mainly limited to the use of biodegradable materials that, however, do not allow full control of the product moisture loss. Better results can be achieved by the combined use of biodegradable packagings with edible coatings and recent research has shown that enrichment with silver-montmorillonite nanoparticles may be a promising technique. However, the actual utilization of these materials is still limited, due to the high costs of the raw materials and the limited production.

Recently, technological innovations have been geared to supporting environmental sustainability, also in the fruit and vegetable industry. The application of ozone in the cold storage of fruits and vegetables is a sustainable technology used to improve product quality and its antimicrobial effect, simple use, and characteristic of not leaving any residue, makes this treatment suitable for many applications in this field. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of refrigeration at 4°C, associated with ozonization treatment at a concentration of 0.2 ppm on the shelf life of fresh-cut lettuce, compared to a lettuce control stored only at 4°C. Lettuce quality throughout the storage period (7 days) was determined by means of color and microbiological indexes, such as total bacterial count, total coliforms, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonadaceae, yeasts and molds. The lettuce used in the experiment was found to have a low microbiological load. Microbiological results obtained at different storage times have shown that the use of ozone is effective in containing microbial growth during chilling storage of the raw material compared to the refrigerated control. In particular, the positive effects of ozonation were appreciable after the third day of storage. Furthermore, the ozone treatment did not affect the color of the product.