Prolonged on-tree maturation vs. cold storage of Hass avocado fruit: Changes in metabolites of bioactive interest at edible ripeness

When the recipient of the product is relatively distant from the production area, it is necessary to use cold storage and controlled humidity to transport the avocado fruits. One of the main advantages of local avocado consumption lies on the possibility of prolonging on-tree maturation; this could foreseeably modify the metabolic profile of the fruit that reaches the consumer. In this work, the effect of prolonged on tree maturation (during different time intervals) on the final composition of avocado fruit (at edible ripeness) was evaluated and compared with the impact of the same periods after prolonged cold storage. The quantitative evolution of nine bioactive metabolites (7 phenolic compounds, pantothenic and abscisic acids) over 40 days (10-days intervals) was studied by using a solid–liquid extraction protocol and a LC-MS methodology. The results were discussed both considering the quantitative evolution of each individual compound and the sum of all of them.