Chances are you won’t be finding too many problems when you receive Okra into your warehouse.  But every now and then you will find some shriveled okra, discolored okra, decayed okra, or you may encounter a temperature issue and the okra is showing signs of yellowing.  In future posts I will cover some of the specific defects of okra, but this post is devoted to the inspection procedures if you encounter okra with some defects.

The first reference source you should use is the U.S. Grade Standard for Okra

Unfortunately, the USDA has been busy working on other commodities, as this standard dates back to 1928, one of the oldest U.S. Grade Standards still in existence. Apparently no one in the produce industry found it necessary to petition the USDA to update this standard. The 1-page standard does not offer you much help with scoring guidelines, simply stating if you find any defects or combination of defects that materially detracts from the appearance or marketing quality of the individual pod or of the lot as a whole, you should score that defect as damage. If you find any defects or combination of defects that seriously detracts from the appearance or marketing quality of the individual pod or of the lot as a whole, you should score that defect as serious damage. That’s it! So, if you find discoloration on the okra, exactly how much is allowed before scoring it as a defect? Your only guideline is to your your best judgement and determine if you feel the discoloration detracts from the appearance, in other words would a consumer notice the defect and decide against purchasing it? Take into consideration the color (tan, brown, dark brown, black) and the area affected (1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 25% of the surface) when making your decision. Remember it will take a larger area of tan discoloration to be scored as damage in relation to a darker or black discolored area.

The tolerances for Okra are simple, allowing 10% total defects, including 5% serious damage defects, and not more than 1% decay. But determining the percent of defects is not so simple. The U.S. Grade Standards state the tolerances for okra are based on weight. Meaning, if you follow the standard you should weigh out 100 ounces for a sample, separate the defects and weigh the defects, in ounces. For example, 6 ounces of discoloration would equal 6%, based on a 100 ounce sample. But is this how the USDA inspectors do it? In my 30 plus years of USDA experience I never saw a USDA inspector (including myself) weigh out okra when performing the inspection. So what do they do? They simply count out 50 or 100 pods for each sample, and count the defects found during the inspection process. For example, if they count out 50 pods for a sample, and they find 4 pods with decay, they will report 8% decay for the sample.