Handling pears
Fruit, vegetables and flowers are living and sensitive products. When working with fresh products like pears, it is essential to realise the importance of handling products with care. This prevents food and quality losses and profit losses.
Handle with care
Whether it is in the orchard, in the cold store, in the supermarket or at home, pears should be treated delicately. All kinds of damage can occur. This may be directly visible, but may also become visible after a couple of days or months. When a pear falls or when it bumps against a tough surface, it will easily show bruises or skin damage. Also high pressure or weight, for instance from other pears, will cause bruises. Bruising of a pear results in ethylene production. This may accelerate the ripening of the fruit and may cause even more loss then only the bruised fruit. Damaged fruits may be an entrance point for pathogens, creating even more problems. Handling pears with care greatly decreases the losses in the chain. Therefore, companies often follow standardized procedures to make sure damage caused by handling is prevented.
Attention points in the chain
1. Take only a few pears at a time
At harvest, but also when sorting or packing manually, only a few pears at a time should be in your hands. Having more of them may increase the risk of falling or bumping against each other.
2. Don't throw with pears
Pear should not be thrown in a bin or box, but placed carefully. This counts for placing pears in baskets at harvest, or when packing pears after sorting/grading.
3. Make sure nails are cut or covered
Nails can easily damage the skin of apples. Using gloves or having short nails helps here.
"Poor handling of pears during harvest is not always directly visible on the fruit, but after months of storage it may result in losses of 5-10%"
Hans de Wild, Postharvest consultant, Wageningen Food & Biobased Research