Specific SmartFresh™ use recommendations are being developed for British heritage apple varieties.
AgroFresh, the company responsible for marketing SmartFresh™ has found that as demand for locally grown, heritage apples is increasing in the UK, it has started to develop recommendations to help growers deliver these traditional English varieties with the quality parameters, supermarkets are looking for. Mark Tully, manager of Landseer which represents AgroFresh in the UK said: “In 2007, our freshness protection system was, for example, used for about a quarter of the stored Egremont Russet crop with very good benefits.
“This variety is very sensitive, but SmartFresh™ has shown to contribute to a significant reduction of bitter pit, which provided our customers with a very good pack-out yield especially after Christmas. We expect that the number of SmartFresh applications on Egremont Russet to increase again this year.” Another niche variety, SmartFresh™ has already been successfully used on, is Spartan. According to Tully, quality, firmness and shelf life were excellent: “After one week in the fruit bowl at ambient temperature, the SmartFresh™ Spartan had still a pressure of 6.65 kg whereas the control fruits were over a kg less.”
Promoting its new technology for local varieties has been part of AgroFresh’s sustainability programme for a while. The introduction of SmartFresh™ on Bramley began four years ago. “Right from the start growers saw an opportunity to rely on SmartFresh™ to reduce the appearance of scald without running the risk of pesticide residues,” said Tully.
Now AgroFresh has started to assess its flagship from a different perspective. “The proven shelf life of SmartFresh™ apples can contribute to fruit waste reduction,” said Tully. “A retail study in the Netherlands had already indicated valuable findings. We intend to further investigate this benefit in 2009.” His company is also looking into possible energy savings through storage with SmartFresh™.
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