Top taste for Australian citrus

This season’s crop of Australian citrus is producing some of the best eating fruit the industry has seen in recent times, with positive testing recorded across the country.

“All customers of Australian fruit are going to be very happy,” said Bill Robinson, grower services manager at Mildura Fruit Company (MFC).

“All our maturity testing and taste testing show that the eating quality of Australian fruit is the best in the last seven years.”

“Sugar levels are quite high, acid levels are low and that’s due to this season’s weather conditions,” Robinson said.

MFC recently hosted some major Chinese importers to Australia to taste different varieties of oranges and mandarins at several farms.

“One customer has been coming to Australia for the past five years and said it was the best eating quality fruit he has eaten in that time,” Robinson said.

Mara Milner, quality project officer at Citrus Australia, said results from the 2019 Australian Citrus Quality Standards (ACQS) program have also been very positive.

The ACQS program samples and tests citrus fruit from the Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney fresh produce wholesale markets.

“So far the results are very positive with 97 per cent of samples not just meeting but exceeding the BrimA level of 90, which is industry’s accepted eating quality parameter for oranges,” Milner said.

“We expect as the season progresses through the mid and winter varieties that the percentage of fruit passing this level will be close to if not 100 per cent, contributing to another successful year for our industry.”