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Why can prolonged cold storage injure bananas, lemons, avocados, and mangoes?

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lime processing — fruit processing Limes being prepared for processing into juice, Tecoman, Mexico.

Prolonged cold storage can injure tropical and subtropical fruits like bananas, lemons, avocados, and mangoes because they are sensitive to low temperatures, which causes physiological disorders known as chilling injury.12

Unlike many temperate-zone fruits that can be safely stored at temperatures between 32 and 41 °F (0 to 5 °C), these specific fruits require warmer conditions to maintain their integrity and ability to ripen properly. For instance, bananas cannot tolerate temperatures below 53 °F (12 °C), while some avocado varieties are limited to a minimum of 46 °F (8 °C).1

When these fruits are exposed to temperatures below their threshold, they suffer from chilling injury, which manifests as surface pitting and browning, as well as the darkening and pitting of the flesh. This damage disrupts the fruit's normal physiological processes, causing them to fail to ripen correctly.31