ANALYSIS OF SPOILAGE AND STORAGE OF FRESH TOMATO IN PLATEAU STATE NIGERIA

The purpose of this research was to determine spoilage resulting from adopted methods of storage among tomato sellers relative to quantity stored in major markets of Plateau State, Nigeria. Methods used to obtain data from 400 tomato sellers involve administration of structured questionnaires based on purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics, F-test, t-test and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) methods were used to analyse the data. Results from the use of F-test and t-test statistics showed that there is significant relationship among variables and that both storage methods and quantity stored of fresh tomato have significant effect on total quantity of tomato spoiled at 95% confidence bound. Consequently, a model of the association was presented. It was concluded that majority of tomato sellers used woven baskets to store tomatoes. Also, heat and pathogens were major factors causing tomato spoilage and more tomatoes spoiled during rain season than dry season.