Postharvest Management to Preserve the Nutritional Quality of Vegetables: An Overview Based on Current Research Findings Across the Globe

Vegetables are very important foods that provide vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, dietary fiber, and other beneficial compounds that help keep people healthy. Unfortunately, a large amount of vegetables is lost or damaged after harvesting due to natural deterioration processes, growth of harmful microorganisms, and poor handling during storage and transportation, all of which reduce their nutritional value considerably. This chapter reviews the main factors that affect how vegetables maintain their nutritional quality after being harvested and also discusses various management approaches that can help reduce these nutrient losses. Across these areas—including preharvest growing conditions, harvest timing, temperature and humidity control, modified atmosphere packaging, and emerging preservation technologies—the literature indicates that combining rapid cooling, cold‐chain maintenance, and controlled atmosphere conditions consistently preserves more vitamin C, carotenoids, and phenolic content than any single intervention applied alone. Newer technologies, such as UV‐C treatment, edible coatings, and high‐pressure processing, offer additional commodity‐specific gains. However, they require careful optimization to avoid tissue damage or quality loss. Despite this progress, important gaps remain: commodity‐specific protocols are still lacking for many minor and tropical vegetables, predictive modeling and real‐time monitoring tools are rarely used to guide postharvest decisions, and biofortification and supply‐chain‐level interventions remain underexploited in smallholder settings; closing these gaps is a priority for future research. Overall, this chapter shows that better postharvest management practices can help reduce nutritional losses, improve food availability, and increase income for farmers and other people involved in vegetable production, especially in developing countries where postharvest losses are still very high and remain a major problem that needs urgent attention.