## 1 Introduction  
Globally, within the last ten (10) years, fresh-cut fruits have gained popularity with consumers for being ready-to-eat, providing convenience, and being highly nutritious with health-benefiting compounds. The increasing consumption of these kinds of fruits can be attributed to the shifts in consumers' lifestyles and their preference for new and healthy natural products, as well as advancements in processing [1]. Apples rank high among the most popular fruits and are a significant source of organic acids, phenolic compounds, dietary fibre, vitamins, and starch content as well as micro- and macronutrients [2; 3; 4]. When apples undergo minimal processing, they encounter various operation steps including sanitizing, peeling, shredding, cutting, and packaging. These processes result in fruit tissue disruption, increasing free organic substrates and accelerating the susceptibility to microbial deterioration, which in turn shortens the produce shelf life [5]. Due to ethylene generation,enzymatic and non-enzymatic browning, respiratory activity, and nutritional release from cells that are activated by injuries, fresh-cut apples shelf life is limited to a maximum of 7 days [5; 6; 7]. Furthermore, quality loss in fresh-cut apples could be attributed to physical injury, water loss, and microbiological decay. Tissue softening, surface browning and discolorations, reduced nutritional content, texture loss, translucency, exudation, formation of an off-flavour and off-odour, and microbial proliferation are the characteristics of the ensuing spoilage [8]. Over the years, to prevent browning, agents such as calcium sorbate and ascorbic acid have commonly been used by the industry [9]. Nevertheless, extended usage of these solutions may cause them to get contaminated with microorganisms, which facilitates the growth of bacterial pathogens. Chlorine-based solutions with hypochlorite as the active agent (between 50 and 200 mg L\({}^{-1}\)) are generally suggested for pretreating whole and minimally processed fruits. However, hypochlorite- or chlorine-based solutions bind to organic matter in the solution to form disinfectant by-products, which also diminishes the available active chlorine concentration. This could result in the sanitizing solutions needing to be changed every two or three uses [10] or repeated over-dosing with chlorine leading to microbial resistance [11; 12; 13]. Because of these safety concerns and the quality deterioration of fresh-cut products, there is an urgent need for alternative, environmentally friendly pretreatments such as the electrolyzed water treatment to develop safe, and highly nutritional. Considerable research on electrolyzed water (EW) as a microbial decontaminant or disinfectant for fresh-cut fruits has been conducted. For example, [PERSON] et al. [14] found that treating fresh-cut mangoes with various doses (0, 75, 150, 225, and 300 mg L\({}^{-1}\)) of neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) effectively inactivated bacteria, coliforms, yeasts, and moulds. _Salmonella enterica_, _Escherichia coli_, and _Listeria_ spp. levels declined on fresh-cut 'Rocha' pears when treated with AEW and NEW, according to [PERSON] et al. [15]. Furthermore, without sacrificing any nutrients or antioxidant activity, a 40.2% decrease in _S. Typhimurium_ was observed in fresh-cut red cabbage treated with AEW [16]. Moreover, it was discovered that utilizing AEW and NEW rather than a sodium hypochlorite (SH) solution had a higher impact on yeasts, namely _Pichia fermentans_, _Metschnikowia pulcherrima_, _Candida sake_, and _Hansenispora wavaram_, for fresh-cut 'Royal' apples [17]. However, the role of electrolyzed water as an anti-browning and/or antimicrobial agent has not been considerably explored or fully understood. Moreover, fruit quality requirements for fresh-cut apples are different from those of the fresh market. The soluble-solids-to-acid ratio is often regarded as a significant factor in apple flavour [1; 4; 9].