ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF DEVELOPING A HIGH QUALITY SWEET CHERRY PRODUCT IN NORWAY

Rapid cooling immediately after picking is crucial to extend the keeping quality and shelf life. According to new procedures introduced this season, the sweet cherries were picked unsorted and transferred to containers determined for cold storage. Twice a day transport from the growers to the pack-house was organized. In this case, a new cooling system provided the storage atmosphere with cold air of high humidity, and the temperature between the cherries was lowered to +2°C within two hours. After such rapid cooling the sweet cherries were stored in a normal cold storage until sorting and packing on a line took place, to ensure high and homogeneous quality. Compared to traditional harvest with sorting and packing in sales boxes of 5 kg at the farm, the new harvest methods raised the capacity by averagely 48 %. The new cooling, sorting and packing system gave higher production costs, but calculations showed that saved harvest costs compensated this. Preliminary market investigations in the 1992 season indicated that a new type of small consumer packages (0.5 kg) with transparent plastic cover, made it difficult for the consumers to evaluate the sweet cherries before buying. An improved open package type was tested this year. Sales registrations and interviews of customers and sales staff indicated preferences to sweet cherries sold by weight in 5-kg packages.

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