The ripening inhibitor SmartFresh (MCP) holds promise for maintaining pear quality over a longer period of time and reducing disorders such as scald, but the pear industry reports that some treated pears won’t ripen.
Dr. Eugene Kupferman, retired Washington State University postharvest specialist, said Bartlett pears, which are harvested in August in the Pacific Northwest, can normally be stored until December or January. Shippers are starting to use MCP to extend the season as well as to maintain the quality of pears during shipment to distant markets, but there’s a risk, he said, that the pears might still be rock hard when they reach the consumer.
“It’s like the Viagra ad,” he said. “You can’t get them to relax and ripen after you apply too high a concentration of SmartFresh.”
Dr. Amit Dhingra, a researcher with Washington State University, estimates that between 5 and 10 percent of Northwest pears are being treated with MCP, based on a survey of warehouses that he recently conducted for the Fresh Pear Committee.
Brazil
Last season, some Bartlett pears exported to Brazil were rejected by retailers and sent back to the wholesaler because the fruit remained hard, even though it turned color, said Jeff Correa, director of export promotions with the Pear Bureau Northwest. Brazil is the Northwest pear industry’s largest offshore market for MCP-treated Bartlett pears, and there’s concern about the impact of unripenable pears on consumer demand.
During the Pear Bureau’s annual meeting this summer, Dennis Kihlstadius, a ripening consultant for the Pear Bureau, reported a similar situation in Vladivostok, Russia. An importer he visited last season had bought eight loads of Bartlett pears from Argentina that had been shipped in March. When Kihlstadius was there in October, the pears still would not ripen, and the importer had been able to sell only one load because he was getting no repeat sales.
Bob Koehler, a regional manager for the Pear Bureau covering the northeastern United States and Canada, said he saw Bartlett pears on the domestic market at the end of April that had been treated with MCP and looked ripe, but the pressure stayed high and they never got juicy.
“They had a little bit of flavor, but they were not like we expect out of a Bartlett on a regular basis,” he said. “The retailer was happy he could carry Bartletts into January or February, but the fruit was not something that you would want to give the consumer and pin your label on it.”
In fact, for the domestic market, the Pear Bureau has been strongly encouraging shippers to supply pears that have been conditioned with ethylene so they are ripe when purchased, based on the theory that pear sales increase when consumers don’t have to wait several days for the pears to ripen.
Research
Dr. Jim Mattheis, postharvest physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Wenatchee, Washington, has done extensive research with MCP on both apples and pears. In the controlled conditions of laboratory research, MCP treatment of pears has been successful, he said, but in commercial settings, where conditions are variable, pears have responded inconsistently to treatment.
“If we could predict the responsiveness and adjust the treatment protocol accordingly, I think you could probably get it right every time,” he said. “But right now, nobody knows how to do that.”
The recommended rate is 100 to 300 parts per billion for pears, compared with 1 part per million for apples. Mattheis said that in lab tests a rate of 300 ppb has provided a nice response in terms of maintaining pear quality, and the effect wears off after several months, allowing the pears to ripen. But it’s not possible to know exactly how many months the effect will last, he said, “and that’s fundamentally the problem.”
If the pears are removed from storage too early, they will ripen very slowly and the only way for a warehouse to know when they’re ready to sell is to keep taking samples of fruit out of storage at intervals and trying to ripen them.
“It’s a commitment,” Mattheis said. “It’s for fruit that you’re not planning to sell, that you want to hold on to for several months. If you get an order and that’s all you’ve got, you’re kind of stuck. There’s no means that I’m aware of to accelerate that process in a really short period.”
Mattheis has done tests at storage and at room temperatures and found that the higher temperature gave a stronger response in terms of delaying ripening.
The reason MCP-treated pears can look ripe even though they’re still hard is because not every aspect of ripening is controlled to the same degree by ethylene, he said.
D’Anjou
MCP is also being used to extend the season for d’Anjou pears and control scald. Packers can potentially save money by treating them with MCP and holding them in regular storage instead of putting them in CA and having to apply a scald control.
Research has shown that the combination of MCP and CA has given the strongest response and longest duration of ripening inhibition, Mattheis said. Long-term exposure to CA makes the fruit inherently less capable of ripening.
Eric Strutzel at Blue Star Growers, Cashmere, Washington, said his company tried using MCP on d’Anjou pears but won’t treat any more because a significant proportion of the pears it sells are conditioned, either before shipment or at the retailer’s distribution center, and the treated pears were difficult to ripen.
“We used it once, and when we took the fruit out and ran it through our preconditioning program, it took five to six times as long to ripen as untreated fruit and never got ripe to the same degree,” he said. However, Strutzel expects the industry will use MCP to lengthen the Bartlett season. If California producers use it to ship pears longer, there will be more overlap with the Northwest season, putting pressure on Northwest packers to shift their season later also. The increasing size of the Northwest crop could also be a factor, he said.
Cookie cutter
Brad Tukey, with AgroFresh’s research and development department in Yakima, Washington, said MCP-treated pears do ripen, but they ripen differently from untreated fruit, and fruit in CA storage ripens differently from fruit in regular storage. Results also differ depending on variety.
“Apples are very cookie-cutter, but the varieties are different in pears and you have to understand that,” he said.
Nate Reed, director of pome fruit research and development at AgroFresh, said that although MCP-treated d’Anjou pears typically come out of storage 1.0 to 1.5 pounds firmer than nontreated fruit, they eventually ripen to the same point. Fruit held for five to seven days at 50°F should ripen well, even without ethylene, he said.
“I think one of the theories in the commercial world is that a SmartFresh-treated d’Anjou doesn’t ripen. That’s not the case.”
Reed said side-by-side comparisons would show that SmartFresh-treated pears do ripen. Though the time frame might not be exactly the same as with untreated pears, it’s not extended to the point of being commercially not feasible.
Thank you for the information. I will not buy pears again because they are chewy and rubbery. After trying several times to store them in different locations, the results have been the same. The last batch we bought were from Argentina and they were, by far, the worst ever and ended up throwing them out. We love pears, but we will wait to buy them at local farms. Pears that come from other countries are a waste of money.
After three weeks in the ripening center of our kitchen, the Bartletts from Argentina bought from Costco feel like tennis balls.
This explains a lot about the rock-hard pears I’ve been gnawing on.
I have been buying pears from Metro grocery store and the wont ripen!
I had four Comice Pears from South America,bought from Fairway, April 12th. They failed to ripen. The first one I tried appeared ripe, soft tops, however it was like wood. I threw it out. Saved the three . One I gave to the birds, they would not eat it. The last two, I cut up today April 27. Still not ripe. Made a pear jam. I had to coax the jam along with strawberries, figs and honey. How can a modified fruit be good for you.
Is there any way to tell if pears have been treated? I’m also tired of buying pears that never get juicy. Organic? But our pears here are already over $2 a pound!
I also bought forelle pears from Costco 3 weeks ago and they are from South Africa nature’s triumph .They just would not ripen. I put them in brown paper bags and also besides other fruits in a fruit bowl and they still won’t ripen. I will not buy them again!
I bought Bosc pears from Chile twice at Tottus in Trujillo Peru.
Three weeks – rock hard – bites like Styrofoam with no taste.
Will not buy fruits there again.
No warning or signage.
Now, No Trust.
I have been trying to ripen forelle pears for three weeks now , even tried putting
them in a bag. They just wont ripenI quit buying anjou pears a couple of years ago for the same reason
I*asked a person working in produce, and
the answer I got was that she didn’t eat pears.These are the type of people working
in fruit and vegetables, they don’t know anything.They know nothing about of their product .
The only pears that have been good are bosc pears.Never any problems ripening.
I have been having this problem with Apples too. I constantly strive to force my kids to eat fruits and vegetables, how can I succeed when I am presented with fruit that has sacrificed flavor and texture for appearance. The industry is destroying it’s own future.
Finally, an answer to my question as to why store bought pears don’t ripen anymore. Retailers, distributors and growers are idiots. Why would you do something to your product that would make it more appealing in the short-term (increasing sales and profits), but turn your customers against it the long-term (torpedoing sales and profits)? Could it be that ALL the decision makers — from growers to retailers — are now driven by quarterly sales results and ONLY quarterly results? God help us all.
Now I see why all the pears purchased from supermarkets won’t ripen. That’s sad, but at least I know that I can get pears locally in their season. No more wasted supermarket pear dollars. What I want to know is, how did supermarkets deliver pears in the past–pears that did ripen?
Am a 5th generation pear grower in central wa. So sad to see all the comments on poor quality/ eating pears in this section. We have tried for years to keep MCP off our pears, but lots of sales and co ops will not listen. Stemilt/ hi up growers stand fully against it and 100% and do not use it!
Thanks for the informative article. Bartlett pears have long been my standby off-season fruit, now that supermarket growers have ruined cantaloupes and honeydews by breeding styrofoam-flavored fruit that one can’t tell if it’s ripe or not. Lately I’ve had several batches of pears that just won’t ripen…first batch turned yellow but was rock hard and flavorless, later batches just sit there green for weeks, then start to yellow slowly with no flavor. Guess I’m going to have to limit my fruit to locally-grown, in-season fruit from now on. Even the early watermelons are starting to fail…going from unsweet, flavorless flesh to soft rotten flesh with nothing in between. Nice job, guys, I really hope more people quit buying this garbage, and when it gets to them having warehouses full of unsellable, ruined fruit, maybe they’ll understand.
I bought some D’anjou pears about a month ago and they ripened only now..The label said Forelle South Africa ( #4418). I couldn’t use them in the beginning because they were choking like it can’t get swallowed and as if eating a very young pear. I will not be buying pears that is extremely hard again. A month to ripen is ridiculous for sure. If I were to rate Forelle I would give them a 2*.
ITS NOT THE PEAR THATS THE PROBLEM NO MATTER WHERE THEY COME FROM, ITS WHAT THEY ARE BEING SPRAYED WITH.. THEY MUST SIMPLY STOP SPRAYING THEM. END OF STORY. PEARS BEING THROWN AWAY FOR NOTHING, SIMPLY WASTED.
Have been buying Bartlett pears from Argentina and they are just awful, I had to throw them in the garbage, it has happened a few times, so now I will not buy them anymore.
My Anjous from B.C. Canada turn bright yellow while rock hard but are delicious when ripened to the touch. Ripe in 1 week in a bowl w/bananas and apples.–Amosg amosg@shaw.ca
This problem of poorly-ripening and non-ripening pears has become a virtual epidemic over the past few years! Living in Alaska, all of the cultivated fruit sold here comes from outside the state, and is often if not usually not in prime condition once it appears on store shelves, but pears at least used to routinely be a safe option for good quality fruit, since it ripens only after harvest. However, in the past few years most of the pears I have purchased have not only been excessively hard and dark green, outside of the norm for pears sold here in the past, but more importantly fail to ripen properly, or increasingly fail to ripen at all, even after weeks sitting at room temperature.
SOMETHING is going on here, and is different than in the past. I strongly suspect that the growers are harvesting the pears earlier and earlier, and/or altering their previous storage practices, most likely just to squeeze a few more pennies out of the hapless ultimate consumer of their increasingly lousy product. But what value is there in making a fruit easier to store and/or ship, if it is only ultimately garbage?
Pears from Argentina are the BEST. Every time I see them at the store I make sure to buy a bunch. They are so sweet! This last time I bought 5 and it took 3 weeks for them to rippen in the middle of the summet, which is a lot of time… you can’t have it all!
Does anyone know if there are any negative health effects of the chemical used on “preconditioned “pears?
I’ve given up now on buying pears for about 4 months of the year when we can only buy Argentina sourced Bartlett pears here in London Ontario Canada.
I’ve had too many years now where those pears DO NOT RIPEN properly due to the MCP Smartfresh treatment that inhibits ripening. Even when some yellow appears, the pear exterior becomes leathery and is still rock hard to bite into.
I’ll wait until late August when the local Bartletts come on the market. They are a bit smaller but MUCH sweeter and juicier than other pears and are a good transition to the US pears that so far haven’t exhibited the traits of being treated with MCP. That does me until the South Africa pears are available.