Industrial relevance: Maintaining quality and microbial safety are the most important concerns of the fresh-cut fruit and vegetables industry. The present study focused on assessing the effect of HWD treatments alone or in combination with PAA, on the respiration rate, ethylene emission, microbial load, flesh firmness, polyamines content and quality retention of fresh-cut Galia melon. According to our results, the use of a heat treatment alone or combined with PAA could replace the use of chlorine, and could be a feasible alternative for fresh-cut industry as a sanitizing method, as or more effective as chlorine. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.