Difficulty in handling tropical fruits lies not only in quarantine and export restriction but also controlling freshness and ripeness of the fruits.
In this regards, domestic fruits are free from such restrictions and freshness and ripeness are easily controlled without worrying the time and distance from production area to the market. World is getting smaller day by day but this traveling time is still serious problem for the freshfruits.
In the meantime, most of the tropical fruits accelerate the ripening speed after they are picked from the tree. Some of the mangoes must be picked at mature green and let them start the ripening process quickly.
The picture left (Keitt variety) is a typical example which we must not be fully ripen on the tree because it becomes not tasty.
Photo right is Kensington Pride mango famous for its most very beautiful reddish color.
But they look rather green mango while they are being packed at the factory. For mango "de-greening" is a general process during ripening.
Exporters must compute the ripening speed and traveling time so that the fruits can reach to the destination at almost ready to eat condition.
However, ripening adjustment by exporter is limited because the requirement for ripeness is different depending on customers.
For example, most of hotels and restaurants require just ready to eat fruits but general retail shops want them to be a little bit backward ripeness considering the time to sell out. For gift giving markets senders are concerned very much about the situation when the fruits have reached to recipients and home delivery time must be considered.
Recently the demand as a material of sweets is rapidly increasing. These requirements vary also depending on the processing specification for each product.
Ripening is controlled basically by temperature adjustment, however at the final stage, we cannot help relying on our peoples' eyes and long experience. We have been engaging in the total processing of breaking bulk, ripening and repacking for many years.