KCB: vine tomatoes above average

In week 24, KCB quality specialist Peter Damen saw greenhouse vegetables of various origins. Their quality was not always optimal, as you would expect in this period. The exception was vine tomatoes, from small to large, that were doing quite well. Loose tomatoes were also of good quality, but because their stems were almost entirely missing, these came out as moderate. The advantage of the missing stems is that stem mould is impossible, but also that there weren't any open lesions.

With the peppers I saw beautiful batches interspersed with those of lesser quality. The lesser quality was especially caused by lack of tension. In the assortment 261-301 mm I found a few "above average" fruits. The tolerance for this was not exceeded, but make sure that this assortment does not become a "receptacle" for all fruits that are too heavy. Beautiful batches were especially found in this rough assortment.

Cucumbers were of an ordinary quality. A few batches had short thick fruits, other batches had longer ones, but these were more heterogeneous in shape and colour. I saw that crooked cucumbers were packed with straight class II ones. That is not the point of this assortment. The quality of the fruits must be Class I, barring the curvature.

Finally, I saw aubergines that were less attractive than what we are accustomed to. Soft fruits showed bruising and were in a box with riper and lighter coloured fruits. Moreover, a few times there was thrip damage seen on the fruit. In conclusion, the quality of greenhouse vegetables was adequate with vine tomatoes being above average.

Source: Peter Damen, Quality Specialist KCB