8
QUALITY SPECIFICATION STANDARDS FOR RAISINS
1. Introduction
1.1. Purpose of the work.
Raisins are a common product which has applications in many foods either as it is as a major and/or characteristic constituent (e.g. mixed fruit, mousli) or, in a different form, as a component in more elaborated food products. The raisin market can be distinguished in two different parts: Retail market (e.g. supermarkets) where the raisins are offered in small packages and factory market where they are offered in large carton packages. Each market has its own demands, specifications and quality specification procedures.
The retail market is supplied by dry fruit wholesalers who are essentially packers or intermediate suppliers. They are not familiar with extensive specifications and their main concern is a product which is legally safe and commercially successful.
The factory market is run by small and large companies which use the raisins as a raw material in their final products. Depending on the size of these companies and the trade name they maintain in the market their level of raisin specifications ranges from the usual organoleptic characteristics to the full proof specification sheets. The companies who are very demanding are very few (e.g. Nestle, Cadburys, Kerloggs). Some of them (e.g. Cadburys) help their suppliers with specification sheets in order to attain a common census and a common paper of acceptance of quality characterisation.
The common practice with sultanas (Greece, Turkey, Iran etc.) is to sell by the organoleptic parameters (to be referred below) and the price of the commodity. This is reflected in the relevant norm set by the EU for this product.
The practice with USA raisins is to sell by specification sheets which (depending on the company) include more or less stringent physical/chemical and other elaborate specification parameters. As a result the USA raisins are distinguished commercially from the sultanas and are able to obtain the biggest and the more well paying part of the market.
The appearance of Greek raisins are changing the scenario because their appearance breaks the monopoly of the USA raisins and opens new dimensions in the Greek dried fruit market. Due to the fact that they are directly compared in the raisin market with the USA raisin, the Greek raisin have two main problems to solve:
a. The different taste and aroma from the USA raisin (no caramelization)
b. The lack of National and/or commercial standards.
These problems must be answered in a concrete and precise manner before the Greek raisin secures a share in the interesting market of the demanding industrial consumers. Because that market sector, although it would accept a product with slightly different taste that the established one, it will not tolerate a supplier who is marketing its products without definite specifications.
Thus in a short time to depose the existence of concrete and high quality demands for the Greek raisin. No doubt that these markets will give the Greek raisin a trial period of mercy but sure this trial period must come to an end as soon as possible and create a good image of a serious product of certified quality. After that it is a law the market that extra returns will be offered for the extra service and quality.
The purpose of this document is to prepare an extensive "CODE OF EXCELLENCE" for Greek raisins by means of a comprehensive quality control specification sheet. In addition it can be extended to include the classical Greek sultanas and help that product reach a better chance in the hard competitive international raisin market.
1.2. Method of work
In developing a system of quality parameters which could be used for commercial purposes along the lines stated above, the following method is proposed.
a. Collect as many as possible specification sheets and technical (but commercially oriented) reports which are relevant to the raisins and sultanas. That will give an overview of what exists and make possible the recognition of all the parameters which have been used so far by the applied practice.
b. Collect expert knowledge on the subject of dried foods and food quality in general. Define the term for each quality specification and recognise the relative weight of each of them in the applied commercial/marketing practice.
c. With the same group of experts search for new parameters which could be used to promote or to distinguish the Greek raisin from the USA raisin. Make sure that these parameters can be measured and that the Greek raisin does have them.
d. Compile draft recommendations for Greek raisins which will be communicated and agreed by the most demanding industries in the market. There should be prepared two versions of this document. One version will be for the expert personnel in these companies and will contain all the information in a concise, complete and technical manner. The second version should be a small easy to understand general document with practical hints of applications and measurements which should be used by the non experts in the company both at the managerial level and at the production level. The purpose of the second document is to make the idea tangible to those who approve the product (the go aheads) and provide practical guidance on the production men on how they could determine the organoleptic and the commercial characteristics of the raisin. If the management feels it necessary it can always address the experts of the company for more information and advise on technical details,
1.3. The effect of the work on the Greek sultana.
At first sight one might think that the quality standards set by the Greek raisin will create further problems to the already weak Greek sultana because the later, beyond its inferior quality (chemical contamination etc.), does not stand the possibility to compete with the Greek raisin. However this is not true for the following reasons:
a. As we already referred above the work on the quality of the Greek raisin can be used to set up quality standards for the Greek sultanas. This will give the later a stronger marketing hand and distinguish it from the rest of the sultanas. None is marketing today Greek sultanas with standards which are beyond the organoleptic parameters and the coarse commercial characteristics.
b. There should be not fear that the Greek sultanas are not able to meet quality control demands set by the rest of the quality parameters. Because the Greek raisins which are made from the same grapes as the Greek sultanas - and are produced under hard drying conditions - meet the quality characteristics demanded by these parameters (A table of measurements of these quality parameters will be presented later in this document). Thus it is the hygienic and the cleaning process of the Greek sultana that lower its quality standards and not its constitution, factors which can be dealt easily we careful packing. It becomes obvious that without any reason the Greek sultana is loosing much of its marketing power by neglecting its quality characteristics and discussing only at the levels of cleanliness and price on which factors is weak compared to the sultana produced by other countries.
2. The recognition of existing quality parameters.
As we have mentioned above the proposition of new draft recommendations for the quality of the Greek raisins demands an extensive search in the current applicable methods and practices in the field. This work should be realised by a collective team of experts. At this stage we give the original input which will be used as a starting working point. However this document does sets the targets and the methodology of work so that at the end it will obtained a practical, usable and appropriate quide.
In Appendix A we give the relevant documents we have currently at our disposal and which have been used to recognise the various quality parameters. With these documents we also list the current EU regulation for the Greek sultanas and Currants in order to make a reference whenever we need to proposed amendments for these types of raisins.
No doubt more references should be sought if one wants to be sure that one has considered indeed all the parameters required. However one should be aware of the danger that one might get too precise and eventually produce a document which is useless for the purpose it wishes to serve.
Following these documents and our experience we propose to distinguish the Raisin Quality Specification factors into the following five groups.
A. Organoleptic Parameters
Size
Foreign materials
Flavour
Loose Stalks
Embedded Stalks
Capstems
Sugared
Damaged or Mouldy
B. Physical Characteristics
Texture
Shear Strength
Penetration Force
Moisture
Specific Gravity
Water Activity
Vegetable Oil
Density
Poured Density
Tapped Density
Colour
C. Chemical Properties
pH
Acidity (total)
Primarily d: tartaric
i: malic with small amounts of citric acid
Sugar Content
Total Sugars
Reduced Sugars
HMF
Aflatoxine
D. Contaminants
Arsenic
Lead
Pesticides Residues
E. Microbiological Specifications
Aerobic Plate Count at 30 C
Moulds at 25 C
Yeast at 25 C
Coliforms
E scherichia
Salmonella
Staphylococcus
Feacoil Streptococci
F. Commercial Characteristics
Product Identification
Parent Grape
Method of Drying
Berries per specified Unit of weight
Packaging specifications
Storage Conditions
Shelf Life
Labelling
Availability
A complete characterisation of the product demands the measurement of each of the above quality factors and the reference of the results in properly designed specification sheets. Each dispatch of product from the packing factory must be accompanied with one completed specification sheet.
The determination of the value for each of the quality factors referred above demands the following general type of activities/measurements:
a. Organoleptic
They are determined by simple inspection methods and do not require any particular instrumentation.
b. Physical Characteristics
They require instruments and specialised personnel to be determined.
c. Chemical characteristics
They require simple chemical instrumentation.
d. Contaminants.
They require more advanced measurements which must be carried out in a well equipped lab.
e. Microbiological specifications
They can be determined by routine tests and demand medium equipment and expertise (?).
f. Commercial characteristics.
They do not require any measurements and are commercial specifications in concordance with commercial and market practices and demands.
It becomes clear the need of the consideration of a multiscientific committee which will determine and complete a document which will be used in practice as a quality control quide or reference or code of practice.
APPENDIX A
The available specification sheets for the raisins distributed mainly by various industries at our disposal are the following.
1. CADBURY LIMITED
a. Raisins Standard Size
Stock 13731. 5 pages. Technical Development, Bournville; February 1993; Amended.
b. Ingredient Specification.
Stock 13766. 3 pages. Technical Development, Bournville; October 1992; Amended.
2. California Raisin Advisory Board - Food Technology Program
5 pages; 1991
3. DOLE RAISINS
Advertising pamphlet; 1 page
4. BAXTERS OF SPEYSIDE
a. Raw material specification for VOSTIZZA currants.
Code 4466 CURR, 2 pages; March 1989.
b. Raw material specification for small sultanas; 2 pages; Code 4464; May 1989.
5. Cecil Smith (Liverpool) Limited
VOSTIZZA Currants; 2 pages; September 1993.
6. BFP Wholesale
Specification; Currants; 3 pages; April 1993.
7. Combined Shipping & Trading Company Limited.
Raw Material Specification; Currants (Greek Provincial); 1 page.
8. MAYFAIR FOODS (LIVERPOOL) LTD.
Raw material Specification for - Raisins (dried); 2 pages.
9. CHESHIRE WHOLEFOODS
Raw materials specification; Depart. Quality Assurance; pages 3; Revision; April 1993.
10. TEE GEE SNACKS LTD
a. Raw material specification; Raisins Chilean; Specification No 38.
b. Raw material specification; Regular Thompson Raisins; Specification No 39.
11. British Fermentation Products ltd
Specification; Sultanas (origin Greece); 3 pages; April 1989.
12. Sara Lee Bakery.
Materials Control Department; Ingredient Specification; Sultanas; 2 pages; January 1991
13. UNKNOWN
Quality specifications for O.R. Sultanas and Bleached Sultanas; 2 pages;
Michael Tsamparlis
24 January 1996.
3. Definition ot terms
In order the quality characteristics defined in the previous section become the standared reference for the classification of the quality of the raisin they must be defined in a clear and absolute manner in the followoing three ways:
a. Definition of terms
This is the detailed description of each parameter which defines it.
b. Definition of procedures
This concerns the discription of the procedures required for the determination or measurement of each of the quality specification parameters.
c. Definition of quality(ies)
This refers to the values each quality parameter must have and the tolerances allowed so that a definite quality assesment (grade) will be given to a definite batch of raisins.
Type of quality parameter / Quality parameter / Description / Measurement Procedure / Values common to all quality gradesOrganoleptic / Size / See below * / Either by measuring the per cent weight of raisins which pass through round perforations Or by mesuring the number of berries per 100 g / See bellow **
Foreign materials / Any material which is not a raisin or part of it (sand,grid, glass, metal etc) / By visual inspection / None
Flavour / Characteristic dry grape flavour / Organoleptic / Free from off flavours
Loose Stalks / Pieces of the main grape stem which are found inside the package box and are longer than 1 cm / Count per box / Target zero. Maximum 3 per box
Embedded Stalks / Stalks which are embedded within the raisin and are shorter that 1 cm / Count per box / Target zero. Maximum 1 per box.
Capstems / Small stem from which each berry is attached to the main branch of the grape / Count per 500 g / Value depending on the grade See below ***