Defect and tolerance
Rind dehydration, and who is holding the fruit
Almost every citrus defect has finished happening by the time somebody notices it. Dehydration has not. The standard bars signs of shrivelling, and then asks separately that fruit be in a condition to arrive in satisfactory condition at destination. That second line looks forward rather than back, and water loss is the thing it was written about.
The figures
| The requirement about the defect | Free of signs of shrivelling and dehydration, listed among the minimum requirements of the citrus standard |
|---|---|
| The requirement that looks forward | In a condition such as to withstand transport and handling, and to arrive in satisfactory condition at the place of destination |
| Measurement offered by the standard | None. Shrivelling is described, never quantified |
| Recommended relative humidity for oranges | 90 to 95 % |
| The named form it takes on navel oranges | Rind breakdown, a depression in the skin that turns into dry reddish brown areas across much of the outside of the fruit |
| What triggers rind breakdown after harvest | Sudden changes in relative humidity |
| When the risk runs higher | In riper fruit, and where picking is delayed |
| A related disorder around the stem | Stem-end rind breakdown, shrivelling and peel injury around the stem attributed to ageing |
| What reduces water loss | Waxing or film wrapping |
| Storage life of our varieties | Not confirmed. The field is empty on all four |
| Wax or coating on our fruit | Not confirmed by the grower |
What it changes on an order
You hold stock before it moves on
Whatever the fruit lost in transit, it keeps losing in your building, and at your cost. How long a load sits with you is part of what a shrivelled orange is telling you, and it is the part nobody upstream can see.
You buy on a long lead time
A load can leave inside the requirement and cross out of it before it arrives, without anyone doing anything wrong. That is exactly the situation the forward looking line addresses, and it is worth reading before a long route is agreed.
You move fruit between two cold rooms
What sets off rind collapse on navel types is the change in humidity rather than a low figure held steady. Every transfer between rooms, vehicles and docks is one of those changes, and a receiving warehouse makes several of them in an afternoon.
You are drafting a quality clause
Since the standard quantifies nothing here, a clause that repeats its words adds nothing to your order. Ask the packhouse what it checks, when, and against what, then write down the answer you can live with.
What this note does not settle
- There is no threshold in the standard to appeal to. Shrivelling is judged by eye, two people can look at the same orange and disagree honestly, and nothing in the text settles it for them.
- This describes the requirement and the direction the defect moves. It takes no position on whether a given load is rejectable or on who carries the cost.
- Two named disorders sit close to this and are not the same entry. Rind breakdown on navels is tied to swings in humidity, while stem-end rind breakdown is described around the stem and attributed to ageing. They come from different sources and should not be merged into one word.
- We have no storage life figure, no coating confirmed and no measurement of how our own fruit travels. Those are open fields rather than reassuring ones.
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
A defect with a direction
Sunburn happened in August, a wind scar happened in spring, oleocellosis happened at picking and a knock on the grading line happened last Tuesday. Read down the defect list of a citrus standard and nearly all of it is a record of something already over, which is why arguing about those defects is arguing about the past. Water loss refuses to behave that way. It started on the tree and it has not stopped since.
That gives the thing an awkward commercial shape. Fruit that arrives inside the requirement can fall out of it while it stands in your chamber, with nobody having touched it in between. Whoever holds the box when the rind gives under a thumb holds the loss, unless the two parties settled beforehand where the handover actually sits.
The line that looks forward
Buried among the minimum requirements sits a sentence that behaves unlike any of its neighbours. It asks that fruit be in a condition to withstand the journey ahead and to reach its destination in a satisfactory state. Everything around it describes the orange in front of the inspector. This one describes an orange that does not exist yet, in a place nobody present has ever seen.
For a buyer on a long route it is the most useful line in the section and the hardest to argue about. Ask a packhouse what it does about water loss rather than what it promises. How the fruit is cooled, whether it carries a coating, how long it waits on the dock before loading. None of that is answered for our own fruit yet, and a confident answer would be worth less to you than this one.
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.