LAVA, the umbrella organisation that groups seven Belgian auctions is working towards one single standard for assessing vegetable quality.
Four scientific test centres that organise tests in collaboration with LAVA to assess the quality of new and existing varieties of vegetables have launched a long-range plan to ensure that the assessments are consistently carried out in the same way. This standardisation is also important for retailers, LAVA said in a statement, since the results of the quality tests determine which new varieties will be brought into production and whether existing varieties should be retained.
The four test centres are scattered throughout the Flandria vegetable production areas, in Meerle, Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Kruishoutem and Roeselare-Beitem. The Flanders Centre of Postharvest Technology (VCBT) in Heverlee is responsible for co-ordination.
Standardisation requires that all testers use the same procedure for taking samples; mean the same thing when they use terms to describe defects eg. "over-elongation"; make an assessment on each criterion in the same way giving the same rating to the same abnormality.
In the course of 2004 the four test centres, the auctions and the VCBT will look at which assessments are performed as part of the variety tests and how measurements can be standardised. The firmness of sweet peppers, for example, is still judged by hand, but it may be possible to develop a measuring instrument to do the job. Each test centre will invite the other centres and LAVA to witness the assessment of new and existing varieties. This will allow all parties concerned to see how the others work.
Another initiative this year is to collect important photographic material to exclude the human factor as much as possible. Each stage of each defect in each type of vegetable tested will be documented photographically. For example, to assess the size of silver spots on sweet peppers, testers in each test centre will work with the same photos of the different stages of silver spot development. Each stage is given a specific assessment grade.
