[Index]
Further progress in standards and codes
for trade in fruit and vegetables
Working Party on Agricultural Quality
Standards
58th session, 29 - 31 October 2002, Geneva
Geneva, 8 November 2002
Pineapples
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), through its Working
Party on Agricultural Quality Standards*, has adopted a new "Recommendation
for Pineapples", on the initiative of six major pineapple producer countries
- Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Ghana, Guinea and Togo. With 70 per
cent of the pineapples consumed in Europe coming from these countries, the
Recommendation was designed to reflect current trade practices between Africa
and the UNECE region, especially that pineapples should normally have the
crown intact.
The intact crown is a natural means to increase the shelf life of the fruit.
Following a proposal from South Africa, the Working Party also included the
possibility of marketing pineapples with the stem intact, which further increases
"keeping" quality in a natural way and even makes it possible to export pineapples
from South Africa to Europe by ship. The new recommendation should ensure
fair relations between traders and good quality pineapples for the consumer.
Codes for modern trade in fruit and vegetables
New advances in labelling techniques will make it possible in the future
to label all crucial information directly on individual fruit and vegetables.
The Working Party is currently drawing up a harmonized coding system for fresh
fruit and vegetables, which will have wide-ranging applications in e-Trade.
The system, which was pioneered in the meat sector, in cooperation with EAN
International, is now being applied to fresh produce.
Should organic produce have to look good?
Are existing quality standards a trade barrier for organic produce because
they require all fruit and vegetables to look good and be of a reasonably
large size? Should there be separate quality standards for organic produce?
The Working Party will approach producer countries to find out if they are
experiencing problems with the existing standards and then decide how to proceed
on this issue.
How to ensure that the consumer gets ripe and tasty products
Frequently, fruit or vegetables that look fresh and tasty are unripe or taste
bad. The Working Party specialists will continue working on including internal
quality parameters for maturity in the standards to exclude any produce that
is not ripe. A research project on the relationship between taste and internal
parameters for citrus fruit will be completed next year.
For further information, please contact:
Tom Heilandt
Agricultural Standards Unit
Trade Development and Timber Division
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Palais des Nations
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0) 22 917 24 50
Fax: +41 (0) 22 917 00 41
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.unece.org/trade/agr
Note:
* Formerly called the Working Party on Standardization of Perishable Produce
and Quality Development, the Working Party on Agricultural Quality Standards
is responsible for drawing up harmonized commercial quality standards for
perishable produce. Their work is intended to facilitate international trade
through the establishment and maintenance of commercial quality criteria in
the form of standards which are indicative of actual commercial practice.
The UNECE standards on perishable produce represent a harmonization of existing
national commercial standards to take into account common commercial quality
and trade practices. It is not the aim of the Working Party to create new
principles of commercial standardization.
The standards establish the definition of the produce, levels of quality by
means of minimum characteristics and quality classes, size classifications,
marking, packaging and presentation requirements for the purpose of promoting
orderly and efficient trade by providing a common trading language. The standards
are intended for application at the point of export/dispatching control.
Ref: ECE/TRADE/02/11