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Citrus fruit quality standards
Consumers demand high
quality for the food they consume and they are
increasingly demanding concerning the taste, appearance
and shape of citrus fruits (and produce in general), as
well as the consistency, purity and freshness of citrus
juices. Food safety has become a very significant issue,
particularly after the food scares in Europe. Consumers
want to be informed about the food they are consuming
through appropriate labeling and tracking and
traceability schemes. The quality requirements citrus
fruit and products have to comply with, would be
determined by attributes such as maturity, hygiene,
presentation, absence of residues, blemishes and
diseases and environment protection.
International quality standards for citrus fruits and
products are normally set in Codex Alimentarius.
According to UNECE Recommendation for Citrus Fruit (UN
Economic Commission for Europe, Agricultural Standards
Unit, Fresh Fruit and Vegetables), the citrus fruits
must be:
- intact
- free of bruising and/or extensive healed over cuts
- sound; produce affected by rotting or deterioration
such as to make it unfit for consumption is excluded
- clean practically free of any visible foreign matter
- practically free from pests
- practically free from damage caused by pests
- free of signs of internal shriveling
- free of damage caused by low temperature or frost
- free of all abnormal external moisture
- free of any foreign smell and/or taste.
Maturity of citrus fruit is defined by minimum juice
content, minimum total soluble solids content (TSS),
i.e. minimum sugar content and coloring.
For quality testing, citrus grove managers take
representative samples of fruits from a particular block
of trees and check for the attributes. In the case of
juice extraction, the fruit is squeezed from the sample
fruit and the juice is tested for two main attributes,
brix (total soluble solids) and acid. From these two
attributes, the sugar/acid ratio, which gives the flavor
of the juice, is determined. Orange juice must meet
minimum standards to be sold as 100% Orange Juice (See:
are you 100% sure that itīs pure?, Florida Department of
Citrus). Quality of citrus fruits and juices is
inspected at different stages of the marketing chain.
Apart from internationally established standards or
quality, as supermarkets focus on customer satisfaction
and since there are increasing concerns about food
safety, retail chains are more demanding on quality
aspects and they are very strict about third party
certification. The industry is therefore increasingly
paying attention to chain management and labeling
systems in order to be able to trace the produce back to
its origin. In the context of increasing
environment-awareness in the EU, a group of leading
European food retailers launched the EurepGap
(Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group for Good
Agricultural Practice) in 1999, with the objective of
raising standards for the production of fresh fruit and
vegetables by promoting food safety, sustainable use of
natural resources and more environment-friendly
production .In addition, in April 2000, a group of
international retailers identified the need to enhance
food safety, ensure consumer protection, strengthen
consumer confidence, set requirements for food safety
schemes and improve cost efficiency throughout the food
supply chain. Following their lead, the Global Food
Safety Initiative (GFSI) was launched in May 2000. The
Initiative is facilitated by CIES - The Food Business
Forum and is based on the principle that food safety is
a non-competitive issue, as any potential problem
arising may cause repercussions in the whole sector. The
key priorities of the Initiative are to implement a
scheme for benchmarking food safety standards
world-wide; to build and implement an international
early warning system; to encourage co-operation between
the world-wide food sector and national and pan-national
governments and authorities and to communicate the
Initiative to all concerned parties and promote consumer
education. For additional information visit CIES-The
Food Business Forum.
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