Total Berry works on new fruit assessment

Total Berry is challenging the industry norm of using Brix as the standard measure of soft fruit quality by developing a new method for assessing strawberries’ flavour.

It is studying existing commercial varieties as well as those from Total Berry’s test site in Kent to determine more exact levels of sugar and acid.

It was important to break from the current reliance on Brix as the sole measure of flavour in order to achieve a closer understanding of customer preferences, said Drew Reynolds, technical and business development director for Total Produce UK.

“While we are still using Brix as a standard measurement we are also comparing it against sugar/acid testing.”