Picking Bramley apples

[exile]

Exile's post reminds me of a question I have been meaning to ask for a while now.
For those who have to buy their fruit & veg from supermarkets, I have been wondering how you are finding the quality over the last year or so. More often than not here in TBOB produce that looks very good turns out to be rotten inside when we come to use it. As a result we buy very little fruit these days. Spuds and onions have been particularly bad. Is this down to poor storage, or in the case of fruit, picking too early? Much of the fruit we buy is pretty tasteless. Even the canned stuff is better in that respect. I wouldn't complain so loudly if produce was actually cheap but its not these days.

Something to note with local fruit and veg in the supermarkets and sometimes the stalls in the markets, is that although it has been locally grown, it may well have travelled a long way and will be far from fresh.

The fruit and veg is collected and often packaged at the local cooperative and then shipped off by truck to Rungis just to the South of Paris. Rungis is the French version of Covent Garden but on steroids. Over 200hectares of which around 75hectares are covered. Trading takes place in the small hours of the morning and produce is sold all over Europe. Our "local" produce will be bought by a local distributor for the small shops or in the case of supermarket chains for their centralised distribution centres.

The local distributor will then sell his wares from his local warehouse to the various smaller shops.
The Supermarket chain will then distribute the goods to the supermarkets.

So worst case:
Day 1: Product is harvested
Day 2: Product is sorted, packed and shipped off to Rungis (note a truck driver will not be able to travel more than 400km in a day due to driver hours restrictions)
Day 3: Goods arrive in Rungis - but note there is no market on Sunday night-Monday morning, so if the truck arrives on Sunday (permitted for perishable goods) it won't be sold until early Tuesday morning.
Day 4: Goods sold in early hours of the morning and shipped by truck to the distribution centre.
Day 5: Goods arrive at distribution centre and can then be sent out to the shops.
Day 6: Goods put out for sale.

And you thought you were buying fresh produce; plus in all that time it is likely that storage will have been sub-optimal.

[Hotrodder]

Whew! And they talk about "air miles".

[Polly]

That does sound a long time before the customer gets the fruit and vegs.

In France we’re lucky to be able to buy quite a lot of our vegs and fruit directly from local growers, so know it's fresh, and our eggs are collected on Tuesday evenings ready for the local produce market on Wednesday mornings.

[exile]

Yes; Buying direct is the way to go - but be sure that you are actually buying from the producer. In our local market, most producers display an official certificate. Some supermarkets are permitted to buy local goods directly and our Super U supermarket does that for some of its fruit, veg and meat. Our Auchan hypermarket certainly does not.

[Hotrodder]

The spuds we have been getting from all the big chain supermarkets around here have been rubbish for months, undersized, going green at point of sale, and many rotten inside. On the off chance we tried Netto, a bit further away from our usual shopping radius. Spuds were medium to large, clean and cheaper than the other places. We will be going back for more of the same.

[Quiksilver]

Exile's post reminds me of a question I have been meaning to ask for a while now.
For those who have to buy their fruit & veg from supermarkets, I have been wondering how you are finding the quality over the last year or so. More often than not here in TBOB produce that looks very good turns out to be rotten inside when we come to use it. As a result we buy very little fruit these days. Spuds and onions have been particularly bad. Is this down to poor storage, or in the case of fruit, picking too early? Much of the fruit we buy is pretty tasteless. Even the canned stuff is better in that respect. I wouldn't complain so loudly if produce was actually cheap but its not these days.

Something to note with local fruit and veg in the supermarkets and sometimes the stalls in the markets, is that although it has been locally grown, it may well have travelled a long way and will be far from fresh.

The fruit and veg is collected and often packaged at the local cooperative and then shipped off by truck to Rungis just to the South of Paris. Rungis is the French version of Covent Garden but on steroids. Over 200hectares of which around 75hectares are covered. Trading takes place in the small hours of the morning and produce is sold all over Europe. Our "local" produce will be bought by a local distributor for the small shops or in the case of supermarket chains for their centralised distribution centres.

The local distributor will then sell his wares from his local warehouse to the various smaller shops.
The Supermarket chain will then distribute the goods to the supermarkets.

So worst case:
Day 1: Product is harvested
Day 2: Product is sorted, packed and shipped off to Rungis (note a truck driver will not be able to travel more than 400km in a day due to driver hours restrictions)
Day 3: Goods arrive in Rungis - but note there is no market on Sunday night-Monday morning, so if the truck arrives on Sunday (permitted for perishable goods) it won't be sold until early Tuesday morning.
Day 4: Goods sold in early hours of the morning and shipped by truck to the distribution centre.
Day 5: Goods arrive at distribution centre and can then be sent out to the shops.
Day 6: Goods put out for sale.

And you thought you were buying fresh produce; plus in all that time it is likely that storage will have been sub-optimal.

Just to add, there are several MINs (Marché d'Interet National) around France. Same principle...producers take their goods to sell on to wholesalers and market traders. It's not necessarily to Rungis that produce is sent. Our local one is in Agen. The end result is the same, though. Produce can take up to 10 days to arrive at it's final selling point.

[tagh]

Started cooking up the first batch of damaged or insect eaten fruit; wow, taste without sugar of course is superb. Mainly into freezer for later.