Ripening

Many products can be successfully ripened if they are harvested at the optimum maturity – Avocado, Mango, Kiwi Fruit, Plums, Peaches, Nectarines, Pears and many more…
The 3 established ripening methods are:-

• Natural or Tree Ripening – Natures’ way
  Gives the maximum flavour but the fruit may not be soft enough to eat or could over-mature if harvesting is delayed. Some fruits must be removed from the tree to ripen for consumption.
• Artificial Ripening – Slow but sure
  Gives better shelf life and good flavour but costs will be higher due to the longer periods of storage.
• Forced Ripening – Fast but flawed
  The fastest way to ripen (soften), but ripening may not be even and result in mixed flavour quality – some under and some over-ripening.

Ripening will involve high temperatures and the application of a mix of gasses. It is most important after ripening to halt the further ripening process to extend the shelf-life of the fruit.
Ripening can be far easier if the product is all at the same level of maturity but unfortunately the technology does not yet exist to identify levels of maturity.

For information and advice on the ripening processes please contact us at – info@akfresh.co.uk