Domestic fruit market to get quality control standards

TWO identical-looking sacks of oranges: one contains perfect, delicious fruit, the other is sour. To protect the consumer from having to gamble each time a citrus purchase is made, citrus growers met last week in preparation for a standards meeting for domestic fruit set for 6 November with the Department of Agriculture. “Typically the export market is very discerning. Inspections are both external – skin blemishes and so on – and internal, for acidity and sweetness. We are in initial discussions to implement standards for the domestic market,” said John Edmonds, information manager for the Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) in Durban. One idea mooted was to label qualifying citrus as “choice,” which would be of equivalent quality to a Class 2 export fruit. Another suggestion was to classify fruit quality numerically. “For consumers it’s what’s inside that is the big unknown. This is about consumer protection,” said Edmonds, who said any proposal must be ratified but the result would be citrus quality assurance for buyers. Consumers could either purchase inspected and labelled fruit, or unlabelled fruit and take their chances. One bone of contention is the cost of inspection for growers might make the local market even less attractive. “The export market effectively subsidizes the domestic market. Growers are making little in local sales and if it is even less profitable they might decide simply to dump their product,” said Edmonds. Added Justin Chadwick, CEO for the citrus growers: “As it stands at the moment exporters would rather export even if it gives a small margin, as local market returns are so poor. It can be argued that one of the reasons for the poor local market returns is the variable (and sometimes downright poor) quality that we put onto the market. I believe we should embrace the revision of local market standards, and make them work in the best interests of the grower and the consumer.”