Fruit Handling

Putting the Best Product On the Market

We have a lot of pride when it comes to our avocados. Reason being is that we put more effort into every facet of our operation than our competitors. Fruit handling is a prime example. We know that consumers buy on appearance – that’s why we take extra care with our fruit – from harvest to packaging.

Hydrocooling

The first critical step in bringing the best tasting avocado to market is lowering its internal temperature. We know that by removing the high orchard heat from the fruit right after picking you maintain a better tasting avocado with greatly improved shelf life. We do this by hydro-cooling the fruit in an ice-cold bath for 45 minutes to stabilize the avocado’s internal temperature at 40º F.

The cooled fruit, still in bins, moves into the packing house where it is dumped onto conveyors and begins its journey towards packaging.

Washing and Waxing

Mission avocados are washed thoroughly in food grade soap and chlorinated water. After a good rinsing, our high quality food grade wax is applied bringing the avocado skin to a brilliant, shiny appearance – just what consumers look for. This is done not only for cosmetics but as another step in our food safety program. At Mission, you can always count on the finest-looking, most eye-appealing fruit available. We hear this from our customers again and again.

Grading, Sizing and Labeling

Not all of the avocados harvested make the cut at Mission. We have the highest grading standards of any avocado shipper in the industry. Any avocado that shows the slightest indication of sun burn, limb rub, worm damage, ground damage, mechanical damage, thrip or other pest damage is removed from the line. Unlike our competitors standards, only blemish-free avocados attain the designation of Number-1 fruit.

After grading, the fruit is individually weighed. This weight determines the fruit’s size and designates which conveyor will take the fruit to labeling. Labels, known as PLU stickers, are then applied to every piece of fruit. The labels designate size, country of origin and ripeness, and make it easy for retail stores to ring up the price.

Hand-Packs and Volume Fills

The final stop in the packing house is packaging. Depending upon customer
preferences, the fruit is either hand-packed into trays within the carton or volume filled into lugs or RPC containers. It’s then loaded onto refrigerated trucks for the final journey to the customer. Fruit at this point is still hard, and some customers do prefer to receive it this way. However, the journey will continue for more than 50% of the fruit that Mission handles. For that fruit, it’s on to ripening at one of Mission’s six nationwide Ripe Centers.