Defect and Blemish Glossary

What do we mean by produce blemishes and defects? Here is an overview from the TOMRA Food team:

External - Blemishes and Defects 

For external grading there are two different types of marks: 

• Blemish Blemishes are purely cosmetic. A blemish has multiple grades it can be assigned to, such as 1st, 2nd and Juice. It is generally based on the area of the blemish, its color, darkness or other properties. These will be outlined in a grading standard, but they can be very subjective and thus hard to apply. Quality Controllers (QCs) will often disagree and can be internally inconsistent, as they will grade the same fruit differently when presented it twice. 

• Defect Defects are cull products. A defect leads to only pass or fail. Occasionally there might be a juice and cull version of a defect based on severity, but the fruit is always a non-packable loss. These are normally easy for a QCs to apply, as the decision is simple: the fruit either has the defect or not. TOMRAs grading technology can be better than people at grading some defects, as our use of IR channels can detect defects earlier than people. Clear rot is a good example of this. Sometimes there is more than one cull grade such as Juice and Rot.

Internal – Defects and Properties

Similar to external grading there are two different types of internal qualities:

• Defects, these are properties which the produces have that mean it cannot be packed. This is often and internal condition such as an internal rot or a condition such as Apple internal browning disorder. 
• Beneficial properties, these are properties of the produces which are on a scale of good to bad, such as high brix Oranges which make them desirable to some markets. This is similar to a blemish in external grading. Produce which are at the wrong end of the scale such as low brix Oranges can still generally be used but not in the highest value products. With ones that are outside of any packable range becoming defects.