Abstract: Conventional refrigerators provide a good preservation environment with low temperature for fruits and vegetables. It can delay the ripeness of postharvest fruits and vegetables and provide a huge convenience to customers. However, many tropical and subtropical fruits and vegetables are sensitive to the refrigerating temperature, and they will show chilling injury after storage in refrigerators for quite a while, such as skin watery and/or browning spot, pulp browning, and even rot, which significantly reduces the edible quality. This paper reviewed the research progress of the symptoms of chilling injury, occurrence mechanisms and controlling methods. By combining the studies and control methods of chilling injury of postharvest fruits and vegetables and the refrigerator industry, we expect to develop a new preservation refrigerator and provide a good solution for customers to obtain the high quality of fruits and vegetables.

Key words: Fruits and vegetables, Preservation at low temperature, Chilling injury, Control method, New preservation refrigerators