Avocados, 'x-ray' checked: why it benefits us all if people stop squeezing them

Whether it’s a gentle pinch of the tip, or a full-handed feel of the base, touching an avocado before you buy it is a commonplace grocery store habit. But Suzie Delroy, a second-generation farmer based just outside of Pemberton in southern Western Australia, dreams of the day avocado shopping becomes contactless. “We always do the best we can to control the avocado, but by far the biggest bruising occurs when people go and squeeze them.”

Her assessment is backed up by a 2015 report from Australian Horticultural Innovation that involved, among other experiments, using an e-glove sensor to see how hard shoppers were squeezing the fruit. The report found “bruise severity at the retail store display, and from the consumers’ home, was significantly higher than at all preceding sampling points”. Avocados Australia also states that the average avocado is touched by four would-be shoppers before it’s bought.

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In an effort to guarantee quality, Delroy has spent 12 months working with suppliers to develop a spectroscopic machine to scan their avocados – up to 700 per minute. “It’s not a literal X-ray, it’s infrared technology that uses light to analyse the dry matter of the fruit, it’s a non-invasive way to check internally,” Delroy explains. The machine is looking for internal bruising, photographing each avocado 26 times. Avocados that aren’t up to spec are diverted away from the hands of consumers.

While similar practices are employed in Chile and the United States, it’s the first of its kind in Australia. NIR (near infrared) machines are already common in apple growing. “At our packing shed we pack apples as well, so we were already aware of the technology – so we manipulated it to work for avocados.”

The fruits of their labour – Delcados – arrived in Australian supermarkets on 30 September. The Hass avocados are slow grown, left to mature on the tree for over a year before harvesting. Delroy suggests using the avocado’s colour as a gauge of ripeness, when a Hass avocado changes from emerald green to deep aubergine, it’s ready to eat.

Avocados that don’t make the cut aren’t wasted – they’re either diverted to food services businesses, growers markets (where tolerance for less-than-perfect fruit tends to be higher) or, as a last resort, fed to the marron – a kind of freshwater crayfish – that live in the Delroys’ dams. When asked if avocado-fed marron taste any different, Delroy laughs and says: “It could be a new avenue for someone to explore.”

While it feels good to be first, Delroy is hopeful the technology will become commonplace, allowing consumers to trust without touching. “I’d certainly recommend other growers or packers use this technology, I think it benefits us all if all avocados on shelves get better and better … then people will stop squeezing them.”