“Here, there are beautiful apples, less beautiful and very ugly ones!
comments Lise Timmermann in front of a palox, one of those huge crates of fruit that come and go on her farm located in Sarthe.
When they arrive from the orchard, they are all mixed together.
»
Find all the episodes of our video series “Food Checking”
In a large hangar, the apples are placed on the cleaning and sorting line, then conveyed to a machine called Globalscan.
"The machine will take pictures of them one by one from all sides," continues the arborist.
In the next room, the images of fruit scroll on a computer screen.
“This is where we will decide how beautiful and colorful we want an apple to be.
And indeed, a succession of cursors makes it possible to highlight each small defect or, for example, to control the level of red.
On the Pink lady who parade us, it is fixed at 30%.
It looks like Photoshop editing software!
The apples are then routed to channels by category.
"The fact of making them float on the water avoids damaging them", specifies the farmer at the head, at the time of the harvest, of about sixty employees.
Grade 1 apples are the best.
“For this category, our customers are large retailers and wholesalers.
The sale price to these professionals amounts to 1 euro or 1.20 euro approximately” On the Monoprix stall on the avenue d'Italie in Paris, the Pink lady will be sold for 3.99 € per kilo.
Then comes category 2, sold to professionals at 40 to 50 cents per kilo.
And this is where the story gets amazing.
On the market located opposite the Monoprix, this lower category apple reaches €4.40 per kilo, i.e. a higher consumer price of 41 cents!
The last category, classified as "compote", brings together apples that are too ugly to be marketed as they are.
They will be sent to manufacturers who will make applesauce, juice or pies.
Selling price: 10 to 20 cents.
In order to explain these price differences, we interviewed Mia Birau, associate professor of marketing at EM Lyon business school, and organized a blind tasting with Jeanne Lecourt, pastry chef at Saint James Paris, one Michelin star. .
To find out more, press “play”.
