Chilean Prunes Market - Size Variations and Higher Percentage of Kernels caused by pitting issues.

Latest news from Chile as the as the prunes market is facing a myriad of different problems.

Origin Suppliers have reported the following issues:

• With a downward vias, there is more size variation we already know that because of fruit geometry is affecting the size grading process.
• A higher percentage of kernels (not 0,5%, but probably 1% or even more) due to pitting issues caused by fruit shape (38 percent of the fruit looks more flat so it is more difficult to pit).
• Pulp exposure is higher than in regular years.

When entering the process line, we must remove approximately 20% of the fruit (damaged fruit), and then we must deal with around 30%-40% of the fruit that is more flat and harder to pit (so here we expect to have more losses there).

With all that being said, you will have to be more flexible with size dispersion, pit percent, and pulp exposure (packers will add more resources to the line to reduce these problems as much as possible, in the hope customers will not notice.)