Recent Advances in Preservation Techniques for Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms

Edible and medicinal mushrooms, including cultivated and wild species, are increasingly recognized as valuable functional foods and nutraceutical resources due to their high nutritional value, abundance of bioactive compounds, and documented health-promoting properties. However, their high perishability results in substantial postharvest quality losses and limits commercial shelf life. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in mushroom preservation technologies, with particular emphasis on emerging non-thermal approaches such as cold plasma treatment, active packaging systems, and electrostatic field technologies. Conventional and advanced drying methods, edible coatings, biopreservation, fermentation and irradiation are also critically evaluated. Cold plasma treatment effectively reduces microbial contamination and enzymatic browning while maintaining firmness and nutritional quality, whereas active packaging systems based on chitosan films, nanocomposites, and modified atmospheres help reduce moisture loss, delay senescence, and preserve physicochemical properties during storage. Electrostatic field treatment combined with modified atmosphere packaging has shown additional potential for extending refrigerated shelf life. Among drying technologies, freeze-drying generally provides the highest retention of colour, texture and bioactive compounds, although its industrial application remains constrained by high energy consumption and operational costs. Overall, current evidence suggests that integrated preservation approaches offer the greatest potential for improving shelf-life extension and quality retention. Nevertheless, further research is required to address challenges related to industrial scalability, process standardization, economic feasibility and long-term quality assessment.