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AVO C A D O S
Chasing the ripeness with technology The benefits certainty ripple outward. Better-informed purchasing means consumers buy what they actually need, when they need it—cutting household food waste. Retailers gain clearer insight into stock condition, allowing smarter rotation and markdown strategies and reducing waste. And crucially, better quality fruit on display restores consumer confidence.
Avocado buying
Technology is helping retailers gain clearer insight into stock condition. Photo / Trevelyans
Few fresh produce items provoke as much hope, frustration and social media advice as the salacious avocado. Unlike apples or citrus, the exterior of an avocado offers little visual promise of what ripeness lies beneath its skin. Internally, they are complex and fickle. From the moment they are harvested, post-harvest teams are engaged in a delicate balancing act: slowing physiological processes enough to survive long-distance transport, then restarting them in a controlled way so the fruit reaches the consumer at just the right moment. The margin for error is slim, and when it fails, the consequences are felt in waste bins, customer dissatisfaction and eroded value. Historically, that final step in the supermarket has relied heavily on human judgement and guesswork. Squeezing, pressing, tapping, even smelling (?) are all common methods of determining ripeness, but these not only damage fruit, they accelerate spoilage. The situation is an ongoing paradox: avocados are perceived as high-value, yet consumers handle them in ways that reduce their value before they purchase. How many avocados have you squeezed before you find one that’s ripe enough? The result: bruised, spoiling avocados. Pair this with an overabundance of
Alternative to buying at the store, BayFarms delivers avocados (and kiwifruit when in season) to consumers at home, shipping only the highestquality fruit. The same applies
to the restaurants and supermarkets we supply. Based at the largest single-site kiwifruit and avocado postharvest facility in New Zealand, we have the advantage of packing our growers’ fruit on-site, and have high visibility across the supply chain in areas we can control. Simply put, the avocado is a fruit of timing, and for decades, postharvests have managed this complexity behind the scenes. The reality is, we are in a ‘technological revolution’,
and for the avocado, ripeness scanners could close the loop between orchard, packhouse, retailer and consumer. They transform the avocado from a gamble into a guarantee. In the meantime, as a postharvest facility, we will continue to work with the supply chain and provide the best quality avocados to New Zealanders and the world, but as a company of innovation we know that the future of fresh produce is not just about growing better quality fruit; it’s delivering that better quality fruit all the way to the kitchen.
fruit in the market and perceived value drops further. It’s a roller coaster for growers… and not the good kind.
Technology
This is where ripeness-scanning technology represents more than a retail novelty—it marks a shift in how post-harvest intent is finally translated at the point of purchase. Retailers, such as Denmark’s Salling Group and the UK’s Tesco, are now deploying in-store avocado scanners using infrared technology developed by Dutch company OneThird. These scanners assess internal ripeness in seconds and categorise fruit in simple, intuitive terms: overripe, ready to eat, or better in a few days. For the first time, the invisible work done in orchards, packhouses and beyond becomes visible and actionable for consumers. From a post-harvest standpoint, we are watching these developments closely. Trevelyan’s are experts in managing and handling fruit to achieve consistent quality and expected shelf-life; however, it takes everyone across the supply chain to have the same approach so that value is not eroded. Perhaps scanners can shift the paradigm, allowing consumers to gain confidence in the ripeness they’re buying without literally having to take matters into their own hands.
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Local? Global? Growers, we’ll help get your Avos there. 07 573 0085