Defect and tolerance
Chilling injury, the defect no class tolerates
Chilling injury shows as small sunken pits that darken from copper brown to black, or as a browning of the rind with no depression at all. It comes from holding fruit too cold. Damage caused by low temperature is barred in the minimum requirements, so it belongs to no commercial class.
The figures
| Two forms | Pitting, small sunken areas from copper brown to black; and scald, a darkening of the rind without depression |
|---|---|
| Mechanism | Low temperature raises the permeability of the cuticle, epidermal cells lose water and the cytoplasm collapses |
| Status in the standard | Free of damage caused by low temperature or frost is a minimum requirement, and minimum requirements apply in all three classes |
| Where in the chain | During post-harvest storage and transport, after dispatch |
| Reference storage for oranges | 3 to 8 °C for up to three months, varying with cultivar, maturity at harvest and growing area |
| What changes susceptibility | Cultivar, growing area and how mature the fruit was when picked |
| Our transport temperature | Not confirmed with the grower |
What it changes on an order
You or your carrier control the setpoint
This is the one defect on a citrus pallet that the buyer's own leg of the journey can manufacture. When it appears, the temperature trace is the evidence and the fruit is only the symptom.
You are offered fruit that has already been in store
Ask how long it was held and at what temperature before it reached your offer. The injury has a latency, so a clean pallet on the dock is not yet proof of anything.
You are writing the transport clause
Contracts routinely carry a maximum temperature and forget the floor. A minimum protects you against exactly this, and it costs nothing to add while the terms are still open.
What this note does not settle
- There is no single safe temperature for all oranges. It moves with cultivar, with the growing area and with maturity at picking, so a number borrowed from another origin can mislead.
- Symptoms take days to express. Finding no pitting at unloading does not close the question, and a joint inspection later may find a different picture.
- The reference range here comes from the post-harvest literature and not from our own records. We have no confirmed cold chain commitment to offer.
Source: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429, Annex I Part B Part 2 (specific marketing standard for citrus fruit), IRTA, Manual descriptivo de podredumbres y fisiopatías en naranjas y mandarinas, UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center, Orange produce facts
The one defect your own leg can create
Almost everything else on a citrus pallet was decided before the load left. Cold damage is different, because it forms wherever the temperature went wrong, and that could be the grower's store, the carrier's trailer or your own chamber on the night it arrived. The fruit carries no record of which. Only the equipment does.
Standing on a dock, that shifts what you should be gathering. A defect count tells you how much; it will never tell you who. The trace from the reefer, the times the doors stood open and the temperature of the room the pallets went into afterwards are the documents answering the question the fruit cannot.
Latency makes a clean unloading inconclusive
Symptoms need days. Fruit held below its threshold shows nothing at first, then pits appear and darken as the cells that lost water collapse. A pallet inspected and signed for on arrival can turn over the following week in your own store, at which point the paperwork says it was accepted sound. That sequence is common enough to be worth anticipating in the contract.
A practical answer is to agree in advance how long after delivery a temperature complaint stays open, and what evidence each side will produce when one is raised. Our own cold chain commitments are unconfirmed, so we cannot offer a figure today. What we can do is say so before you order rather than after.
Talk to the grower
Tell us the variety, the sizes and the delivery week you need. You get a delivered price and what we can commit to in writing, from the person who picks the fruit.
The grower handles enquiries. Response times are still to be confirmed.