International Produce Training

If you look through a U.S. Standard, for just about any commodity, you will find it includes the applicable U.S. Grades, defect tolerances, defect scoring guidelines and application of tolerances.  For example, let’s look at the U.S. Standard for Cucumbers. 

If you look at Section:  §51.2228 Application of tolerances.
(a) The contents of individual packages in the lot, based on sample inspection, are subject to the following limitations: Provided, That the averages for the entire lot are within the tolerances specified for the grade:

(1) For a tolerance of 10 percent or more, individual packages in any lot shall have not more than one and one-half times the tolerance specified, except that when the package contains 15 specimens or less, individual packages shall have not more than double the tolerance specified; and,

(2) For a tolerance of less than 10 percent, individual packages in any lot shall have not more than double the tolerance specified, except that at least one defective and one off-size specimen may be permitted in any package.

So how do you interpret these guidelines?  First, you must know the defect tolerances for cucumbers.  For a U.S. No. 1 Cucucumber you are allowed 10% total defects, including 1% decay.  The application of tolerances are another way of saying “sample tolerances” or “package tolerances.”  In other words, for cucumbers to be U.S. No. 1 they must contain 10% or less of defects, and 1% or less decay…..and there is a limit, or tolerance established for defects in an individual sample or carton.

Looking at the definition quoted above, in (1), let’s assume we had more than 15 cucumbers in our carton.  We counted out 50 cucumbers for our sample.  According to the definition, you would not be allowed more than 1-1/2 times the defect tolerance of 10%, or 15% defects in any sample.  While you are running your samples you may encounter the following:

The total defects averages 8%, within the tolerance for defects allowed (10%), but the second sample exceeds the application of tolerances, as no sample is allowed to exceed 1-1/2 times the tolerance, or in the case of cucumbers, no sample is allowed to exceed the total defect tolerance of 15%.  Thus, these cucumbers would fail to grade U.S. No. 1.

Looking at the scoresheet above, the application for tolerances with a tolerance less than 10%, (2) in the definition will come into play.  Using cucumbers as our example, no sample may exceed double the tolerance.  The decay tolerance for decay is 1%, which means no sample may exceed double the tolerance or 2% decay.   At first glance you may think the cucumbers are out of grade, as the first sample exceeds the tolerance for decay.  The first sample has 4% decay, as you found 1 decayed cucumber in your 25 sample. 

But look at the last part of the defintion….“except that at least one defective and one off-size specimen may be permitted in any package.”  This is statement is found in most U.S. Standards, as they usually allow for at least one defective specimen in a sample, as long as the final totals are within the tolerances allowed.  In the example shown above, with the 25 count samples, the cucumbers would still be in grade.  The total defects are 5% (4% defect plus 1% decay), you are allowed 10%.  The decay averages 1%, and the standard allows for 1% decay.  Although one sample did exceed the application of tolerances (4% and the standard allows no more than 2%), only 1 cucumber was decayed, and the standard allows for 1 defective specimen, no matter the percent.

The application of tolerances have many nuances among the variouos products, but the basic rules are all the same.  Please feel free to comment if you have any questions about this topic, as this always is the most confusing aspect of understanding the U.S. Standards.

The most important factor when completing an inspection is making the determination if the lot is in grade or out of grade.  Practically all the U.S. Grade Standards are fairly easy to comprehend.  They will usually have wording such as: 10% total defects, including 5% serious damage, including 1% decay.  Some examples:

• 12% damage by bruising and 1% decay, means you have 13% total defects, which exceeds the total tolerance of 10%- Result: Fails to grade.
• 9% damage by bruising, including 6% serious damage, no decay, which exceeds the 5% tolerance for serious damage- Result: Fails to grade. 
• 4% damage by bruising, 5% decay, which exceeds the 1% tolerance for decay- Result: Fails to grade 

But to explain the potato tolerances is confusing, to say the least.  Just ask any 10 USDA inspectors to explain them and you might get 10 different interpretations.  Direct from the U.S. Standards for Potatoes:

• 10% total defects, including 8% for permanent defects.
• 7% for external defects, including 5% for external permanent defects
• 7% for internal defects, including 5% for internal permanent defects
• 2% soft rot.

We know for a fact the defects cannot exceed 10%.  We also know for a fact you cannot have more than 7% external defects, or 7% internal defects.  And we also know we cannot have more than 2% soft rot.

But what is confusing, are potatoes allowed to have 7% external defects AND 2% soft rot?  Ask the USDA, you may be surprised.  I was.  There are two schools of thought.  1) Soft rot is almost always detected externally, so it should be considered an external defect, meaning the combination of external defects and soft rot cannot exceed 7%.  2) But the logical USDA inspectors rely on the wording of the standard, and the standard does not state the 2% soft rot is included in the 7% tolerance for external defects.  Here is a realistic example:

• 4% sunburn
• 3% silver scurf
• 2% surface discoloration

The above external defects total 9%, meaning the lot would be out of grade as it exceeds the 7% tolerance for external defects.

But what if you found:

• 4% sunburn
• 3% silver scurf
• 2% soft rot

Some USDA inspectors would say this is in grade, as the external defects total 7% (allowed) and the soft rot totals 2% (allowed).  But other USDA inspectors would say this fails to grade, as the external defects total 9%, exceeding the 7% tolerance allowed for external defects.

So what is the correct answer?  I contacted the Assistant Branch Chief for the Standardization Section of the USDA and was told the 2% soft rot tolerance is included in the 7% tolerance for external defects, meaning in the example shown above, the lot would not meet grade.

Hopefully the USDA will correct the standard to clarify the wording, as interpreting the tolerances should never be confusing.

You may be receiving some bulk peaches, and the color does not appear to be as uniform as the place packs from Chile or California. You may be wondering if the peaches can be rejected based on color.

As you can see from above, some of the peaches have full color, while others have the red color on 75% or less of the surface.  As you begin inspecting the peaches you can visibly separate the peaches into different color categories.  You also notice some of the peaches have a nice pinkish red to red color, while others only have a light pink, or blush color.

Can you reject the peaches for light color?  Well that depends on the grade marked on the container, or on what grade the peaches were bought, if no grade markings are found.  To begin, if the peaches are marked as “U.S. No.1″, there are no color requirements at all for peaches.  Meaning the peaches could have absolutely zero color, and still meet the requirements of the U.S. No. 1 Grade.

If the peach carton is marked “U.S. Extra No. 1″ as shown above, then you may have cause for rejection if the peaches are too light in color.  To meet the requirements of the U.S. Extra No. 1 Grade the peaches must meet all same requirements as the U.S. No. 1 Grade, but in addition, 50% of the peaches must have at least 25% of the surface showing blush, pink or red color.  As stated, the peaches don’t have to be red in color, but only must be at least a light pink color.  So, looking at our carton, from the top image, there is no doubt that at least 50% of the peaches have at least 25% of their surface with a light pink color.

If your carton has the U.S. Fancy Grade, then a different set of requirements apply.  In that case, 90% of the peaches must have at least 33% of their surface showing a blush, pink or red color.  As you can see, even the highest grade of peaches, U.S. Fancy has a fairly lenient color requirement.

To summarize:

U.S. No. 1 Grade - No color requirement

U.S. Extra No. 1 Grade – 50% of the peaches must have at least 25% of the surface with a blush, pink or red color.

U.S. Fancy – 90% of the peaches must have at least 33% of the surface with a blush, pink or red color.

This may be new to you.  It is new to everyone.  The USDA has decided to score strawberries being wet from leaking juice as a serious damage defect.  I assume the US Grade Standards for Strawberries has been around since the Raspberry Standard, which has a date of 1931.  Up until this year, this defect was pretty much ignored.

Looking at the  requirements for a US  No.1 Strawberry, they must be free from damage caused by dirt, moisture, foreign matter, disease, insects, or mechanical or other means.  The definition for damage is, “means any defect or combination of defects which materailly detracts from the appearance, or the edible or shipping quality of the strawberries.”  For the past 80 years no one thought that a sound strawberry with juice from an adjacent leaking strawberry was detracting from the appearance which affects the shipping quality of the strawberry. 

Take a look at the image above.  The strawberry on the right is obviously bruised, being soft, mushy and leaking juice.  No one would argue it is a serious damage defect.  I intentionally smeared the juice from the bruised berry onto a perfectly sound berry on the left.  At least 50% of the surface is covered with strawberry juice.  Up until recently no one would score the defect on the left as a defect.  No one.  During my 30 plus years as a USDA inspector, I never met an inspector that would score the berry on the left as a defect.  I worked in markets throughout the United States.  I worked with inspectors that began their careers long before mine.  I was a trainer at the USDA’s Training Center and worked with every state and federal inspector in country.  No one would score the strawberry on the left as a defect.  I’ve never met an applicant from the industry that expected that strawberry to be scored as defect.   No one believed a sound strawberry with juice  from a bruised strawberry damaged the appearance.  They were right.

But everything has changed.  Someone at the USDA now feels that the strawberry on the left is a defect.  And to make it more incredible, this person now believes the strawberry on the left should be scored as a serious damage defect.  Every inspector in the country is receiving training from USDA management in 2011 to score these wet berries as a serious damage defect.

As an inspector at your DC, use your judgement and check with your manager/buyer to help make the decision as to whether you should start scoring wet berries as a defect.  As a grower/shipper of strawberries be prepared to begin seeing a new defect showing up on your USDA inspection certificates.  If you would like further clarification, or justification from the USDA, you can call:  202-720-2011

Maybe the USDA will get it right this time.  They struggled with making revisions to the US Grade Standards for Potatoes back in 2008, issuing changes in April and once again in November.  This time around they are attempting to clean up their mistakes, and for the most part they seem to have it right.  Click here to see the proposal.

A couple of notable changes, the revised standard will now allow mixed varieties or types to be include when designated as a specialty pack.  Mixed colors makes sense, allowing for reds, and whites to comingled in the same pack, but allowing for mixed varieties (ie.-Superiors and Atlantics) to be comingled may be another matter.  I am sure the potato industry will weigh in with their comments.

Cleaning up the tolerances for quality defects makes sense.  Why it took 3 years to correct this mistake is alarming.  The current standard allows for 5% external quality defects at shipping point, but at destination the tolerance is increased to 7%.  Why?  Quality (permanent) defects do not change or become worse, so why allow more at destination?  This made no sense.  If an inspector found 7% quality defects (sunburn and misshapen) at destination, at the receiving warehouse, the lot would be in grade.  But if these same 7% quality defects were found by an inspector at the packing house, before the potatoes were shipped, the lot would have been out of grade.  The proposed revsions addresses this anomoly, with no more than 5% quality external defects and 5% quality internal defects being allowed at both shipping point and at destination.

The guideline for scoring sprouts is being changed back, to the way it was, prior to the debacle that took place in 2008.  In 2008 the USDA changed the scoring guideline for sprouts, as being damage when more than 5% of the potatoes have individual sprouts longer than 1/2 inch in length, at destiantion.  This meant if a potato had numerous small sprouts, or peepers, scattered all over the potato it still was not a defect, because no one sprout or cluster was longer than 1/2 inch in length.  This will no longer be the case.  Now, as proposed, a potato with an individual sprout longer than 1/2 inch in length will still be scored as a defect, and any potato with individual sprouts or clusters of sprouts that materially affect the appearance of the potato will also be scored as damage.

This visual aid has been in place for years, as a guideline for the maximum allowed for a cluster of sprouts for the US No. 1 Grade.  I don’t know if they have been ignoring this visual aid since 2008, but at least one is already in place.  The USDA will have to create some additional visual aids, depicting numerous sprouts on a potato, showing what is allowed and what would be considered a defect.

I did notice one oddity the USDA failed to address.  The current standard allows for 1% soft rot (decay) for the US Commercial Grade, while the standard allows twice as much soft rot (2%) for the US No. 1 Grade at destination.  Since the US No.1 Grade is supposed to be the best grade, the highest attainable grade for potatoes, it makes little sense to me why the USDA would recommend twice as much as soft rot for the US No. 1 Grade.

Maybe three years from now the USDA will straighten this out.

You may not be aware, but there are USDA inspection procedures for mushrooms.  Personally, I have performed a few official USDA inspections on mushrooms.  The USDA has issued a U.S. Grade Standard for Mushrooms, unfortunately it hasn’t been updated since 1966. 

The grade standard was established for the inspection of white mushrooms, although the brown crimini can also be inspected using this standard.  The USDA inspection instructions also include inspection procedures for all varieties of mushrooms, portabellas, shiitakes, etc.

When inspecting mushrooms, the defect tolerance are based on a weight basis.  You would have to weigh out a sample of mushrooms, separate the defects, and divide the defects by the total weight of the sample to determine your percentage of defects. In the image above, you would your sample would be the entire consumer container.

But what would you do if you were inspecting a bulk carton of mushrooms, such as this 10lbs. container pictured above?  You would not have to sample the entire container, but you would simply weigh out 1 pound of mushrooms, and this would be one of your samples.  The USDA requires all their inspectors to base their samples on a weight basis, but many industry inspectors in their warehouses will simply count out 50 mushrooms and base their sample on a count basis.  If they found 4 mushrooms damaged by discoloration, based on a 50 count sample, they would record 8% damage by discoloration.

Inspecting spinach leaves, or spinach plants is a fairly easy, but a time consuming inspection.  First off, there is a U.S. Grade Standard for Spinach Leaves, and there is a U.S. Grade Standard for Spinach Plants, with subtle differences.  If you were to follow the grade standards, when inspecting spinach leaves your sample size would be 100 leaves.  Yes, you would have to count out 100 leaves for each sample.  Each defective leaf would equal 1%. 

When inspecting spinach plants, your sample size would be 5 pounds.  Yes, you are expected to weigh out 5 pounds of spinach plants.  If you find a few plants with decay, the entire plant is defective, even if the decay is only affecting one leaf on the plant.  Weigh all defective plants, and divide by 5 pounds (80 ounces) to determine your percentage of defects.

But we are not done.  If you are inspecting spinach plants, but they are bunched, then you would have to use the U.S. Grade Standard for Bunched Spinach.  Incredibly, spinach has three different grade standards.  When sampling bunched spinach leaves or bunched spinach plants you would count out the number of bunches in the carton.  Usually you find 2 dozen bunches in carton.  24 bunches would be the sample size.  If you encounter a bunch with a defect or decay, even if the defect is only affecting one leaf of the bunch, the entire bunch is set aside as the defect.  1 defective bunch would equal 4%.

The defects are common for all three standards, as you would look for discoloration (yellow leaves), broken leaves and decay.  The tolerances allowed are a bit different.  For the bunched spinach, the tolerance for total defects is 12% and not more than 3% is allowed for decay.  For spinach leaves or spinach plants, the tolerance for total defects is only 10%, and not more than 1% is allowed for decay.

“You can’t score defects on Florida Citrus!”  I am sure everyone has heard this at one time or another.  Is it true?  Can you never score defects on Florida Citrus?  Not really.  Whether you are inspecting Oranges and Tangelos, Grapefruit or Tangerines from Florida, they will not be as clean in appearance as citrus from California, but even though some surface scarring is typical of Florida Citrus, you can still score defects.  Oil spots, skin breakdown, rough scarring, decay, just to name a few, are still considered as being defects.

The following images show defects on Florida Citrus, that are virtually not a factor.

Smooth Scars

Melanose

Rust Mite

These are the defects, that if you come across, may not be a grade factor, in determining if the load is in grade or out of grade.  Smooth scars, are scars that are smooth to the touch, not being rough; melanose, a defect caused by a fungus; and rust mite, a defect caused by a small wedge-shaped arachnid, about 1/200 inch, have specific tolerances.  These three defects are called “Excessive Discoloration.”

To determine if you have a problem with these three, first you have to determine if over a third of the surface is affected by a smooth scar, melanose, or rust mite.  If the area affected does exceed 33% of the surface then that specimen is set aside as a defect.  But you are allowed an additional 10% of the fruit having these defects.  In addition to rough scars, skin breakdown, oil spots, insect damage, decay…….you are allowed a separate 10% tolerance of fruit with the excessive discoloration.

So, should you worry about these surface scars?  Most USDA inspectors ignore the excessive discoloration, unless the discoloration is so bad they have no choice but to go through the exercise of looking at each fruit and determine if over 33% of the surface is affected by this discoloration.  But remember, even if you do find the smooth scars, melanose or rust mite affecting more than 33% of the surface, the standard still allows for up to 10% of the fruit with this scoreable discoloration.

With retailers selling watermelons by the individual melon (i.e. $3.99 per melon) receiving watermelons being uniformly sized is important.  No one expects the consumer to choose a small watermelon on display if larger melons are available for the same price.

Most of the times watermelons packed in cartons will be uniform in size.  But when receiving bulk watermelon loads this can be challenging.  What can you do to determine the uniformity of the melons?  Simply counting the melons will not suffice.  Let’s say your order is based on average count of melons per bin.  You may find the count is met, but the melons still range from small to larger melons.

The USDA Inspection Instructions do offer some suggestions.  If you think you may have a problem with the uniformity of size you may want to weigh the watermelons, checking for uniformity.  Weigh, at random, from different bins, 50 melons.  You will want to keep track how many watermelons vary in weight, from the largest to the smallest watermelon.  The USDA states the watermelons are considered as being uniform in size if they do not vary more than 3 pounds in weight, from the smallest to the largest watermelon.

As an example, let’s say there are to be 50 melons per bin.  With a net weight of 1000 pounds per bin, the average weight of each watermelon should be 20 pounds (1000/50= 20 lbs.)  Weigh 50 watermelons,  and keep track of how many watermelons are outside of the 3 pound range.  Watermelons weighing less than 17 pounds and weighing more than 23 pounds would be considered as offsize.  Unfortunately there are no tolerances established by the USDA, as to how many melons are allowed to be outside this range, but if you find more than 10% of the watermelons outside the 3 pound range then you know you have a problem.

Earlier this week I received an e-mail asking me a very good question.  While inspecting strawberries they noticed live insects (thrips) on the strawberries.  There was no feeding damage, nor was there any real evidence of damage done by the insects.  Checking the US Grade Standard and USDA Inspection Instrucitons there was no mention of this being a defect of the US No. 1 Grade. 

Is that right?  A strawberry, or any other fruit or vegetable could have live insects crawling around on it and still make grade?

Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the University of Minnesota Extension Service, these tiny insects, thrips, are virtually invisible to the naked eye.  But if you take the strawberry, or any other specimen, and gently tap it over a white paper, you may be able to see these small yellow to brown specks.  Using a magnifying glass you will clearly see these specks are indeed insects,  some alive and moving around, and others dormant or dead.

The USDA does provide an avenue to score these specimens as damage or as serious damage defects, under the general definitions of each term.  For example, the US Grade Standards for Lettuce state the head of lettuce is damage if the compact portion of the head is infested with insects or worms, and the USDA’s Inspection Instructions define just how many insects or worms constitute being infested.  But this standard is the exception, as most of the other commodities have no clear definition with the number of insects allowed on a specimen, to be graded as a US No. 1.

But all the US Grade Standards do provide a general defintion of what is considered as being damaged, or a defect of the US No. 1 Grade.  If the US Grade Standard does not specifically state an area allowed for a defect (ie.- 1/2 inch for bruising, or 10% of the surface for scarring) then you can default to the following guideline-  “Damage” means any defect or any combination of defects, which materially detracts from the appearance, or the edible or shipping quality.

And since the presence of live insects clearly detracts from the edible quality of the commodity, the USDA will score the specimen as a defect of the US No. 1 Grade. 

The number of insects allowed will vary by the commodity.  This is subjective and will be left up to you, and some common sense.  You would allow more insects if the commodity is going to be washed and prepped before being eaten, and you would be allowed more insects if the commodity were instance celery, lettuce, or cabbage, versus strawberries, blueberries or found in ready to eat fresh cut items.