The researchers, working at State University of Bangladesh in Dhaka, obtained fully ripe Ashwina mangoes from a local market during the mid-April to mid-June 2025 season and cut them into uniform two-centimeter cubes. They then prepared six coating formulations: an untreated control, pure aloe vera gel, pure mixed flower honey, and three blends mixing the two ingredients in ratios of 50:50, 75:25, and 25:75. Each solution was built on a common film-forming base of 1% glycerol as a plasticizer, 1.5% carboxymethyl cellulose as a thickening film former, 1% acetic acid to lower pH and inhibit browning enzymes, and 2% methanol to help disperse honey’s bioactive compounds. The mango cubes were dipped for two minutes, dried for twenty minutes, sealed in low-density polyethylene bags, and stored at just above 4 degrees Celsius with 85% relative humidity for twenty days, with measurements taken every five days.

The experimental design was unusually rigorous for a food preservation study. Three hundred fifty fruits were divided across six treatments with three independent biological replicates each, and an independent researcher assigned treatments at random to ensure blinding. The team tracked moisture loss, firmness, color, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, vitamin C, total polyphenols, total flavonoids, microbial counts, and visible spoilage. Statistical analysis using two-way ANOVA and post hoc tests confirmed that both the coating formulation and storage time, as well as their interaction, significantly shaped nearly every quality attribute measured.

The clearest winner was the pure aloe vera coating. By day 20, uncoated control cubes had lost 27.80% of their moisture, while those coated with 100% aloe vera lost only 14.28%, a relative reduction of nearly half. The mechanism is physical rather than mysterious: the aloe polysaccharides form a semi-permeable film on the cut surface that restricts water vapor escape and gas exchange, suppressing respiration and transpiration simultaneously. Because moisture loss drives softening, shrinkage, and metabolic stress in cut fruit, this single effect cascades through nearly every other quality measure.

Firmness told the same story. Coated mangoes remained significantly firmer than uncoated ones throughout storage, and the pure aloe vera treatment retained more than 90% of its initial firmness by day 20, while the control had softened dramatically. The coating appears to slow the enzymatic breakdown of pectin and hemicellulose, the cell wall components responsible for the transition from crisp to mushy. Interestingly, the 75% aloe vera plus 25% honey blend was the second-best performer at around 71% firmness retention, but formulations richer in honey consistently underperformed pure aloe vera.

That underperformance is the study’s most provocative finding. The researchers had hypothesized that honey’s renowned antimicrobial and antioxidant properties would synergistically enhance aloe vera’s barrier. Instead, the data suggest the opposite: honey’s hygroscopic nature and high concentration of reducing sugars likely increase surface water activity and weaken the polysaccharide film matrix, diluting rather than reinforcing aloe vera’s protective capacity. The authors conclude that the assumption that more bioactive ingredients yield better preservation simply does not hold for fresh-cut mango under refrigeration, a caution worth heeding in a field eager to stack natural additives.

Nutritional preservation was equally impressive. Vitamin C declined in all samples, but the uncoated control lost approximately 23.8 milligrams per 100 grams by day 20, while the aloe vera-coated cubes lost only 7.91 milligrams, thanks to the film’s low oxygen permeability limiting ascorbic acid oxidation. Total phenolic content fell by 51.68% in the control but by only 22.51% in the honey-coated sample, with intermediate losses in the other treatments. Flavonoids followed a parallel pattern, dropping by more than half in untreated fruit while coated samples retained substantially more of these antioxidant compounds that scavenge reactive oxygen species during senescence.

Microbiology sealed the case. Total viable bacterial counts in the uncoated control surged from 1.79 times ten cubed to 5.27 times ten to the sixth colony-forming units per gram over twenty days, a nearly three-thousand-fold increase, while all coated treatments suppressed growth dramatically, with pure aloe vera keeping counts lowest throughout. Mold and yeast counts told the same story, reaching 92.33 times ten per gram in the control versus 33 in the aloe vera group. Visually, the control fruit was dark brown, off-flavored, and heavily infected with fungus by day 20, while coated samples remained yellowish and acceptable considerably longer. Pearson correlation analysis reinforced the picture, revealing strong negative relationships between moisture loss and firmness, phenolics, and flavonoids, indicating that dehydration is the central driver of quality collapse.

The study’s limitations are honest and worth noting. It tested a single local mango variety under one refrigeration condition at laboratory scale, without trained sensory panels, commercial processing trials, or cost analysis, and it did not directly measure film thickness or gas permeability. Even so, the implications are substantial. Bangladesh produced over 1.87 million metric tons of mango in 2025, and postharvest losses in climacteric fruits remain a major source of food waste and associated carbon emissions worldwide. An edible, biodegradable coating made from locally sourced aloe vera and honey offers a clean-label alternative to synthetic preservatives, and the finding that pure aloe vera outperforms the blends provides a clear, evidence-based formulation guideline. Future work on encapsulating active compounds and extending the approach to papayas, guavas, and other climacteric fruits could push this humble plant gel from kitchen remedy to industrial shelf-life technology.

Subject of Research: Edible aloe vera and honey coatings for extending the shelf life and quality of refrigerated fresh-cut mango

Article Title: Aloe vera–Honey Edible Coating Prolongs Shelf Life and Preserves Quality of Refrigerated Fresh‐Cut Mango (Mangifera indica)

Article References: Khatun, T., & Asaduzzaman, M. (2026). Aloe vera –Honey Edible Coating Prolongs Shelf Life and Preserves Quality of Refrigerated Fresh‐Cut Mango ( Mangifera indica ). Food Science & Nutrition, 14(10), Article e72447. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.72447

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.72447

Keywords: aloe vera, honey, edible coating, fresh-cut mango, shelf life, food preservation, postharvest quality, antioxidants, microbial growth, refrigerated storage, moisture loss, firmness