Picked on dates are a great idea! We have a small veggie patch and grow veggies in season, e.g. tomatoes, eggplant, beetroot, peppers, silver beet, etc. The taste is incredible compared to what you get from either local supermarket or green grocery.
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Yes, definitely a problem with apples bought in supermarkets. I always have a look at the ‘bottom’ and if it is tightly closed up then It seems to be fresher than if it has opened up.
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Best way to judge the sweetness of a pineapple is by smelling it. If it smells really sweet, chances are it will be. When holidaying in Queensland some years ago had the most delicious pineapple ever - Think it was called Mareeba Gold??
Hi Rachel
I did expect the produce to be comparable to smaller retailer because of the huge ‘machine’'working round the clock.
Most fruit and veg disappoint; my Mother (96) and I marvel at receiving a fresh and flavoursome anything, rather than taking it as our right in this country.
How many times have I purchased Pears and Broccoli that look great only to find the Pears take weeks to ripen, and then lack flavour, with the broccoli turning yellow in two days. I keep getting fooled!
Now shop through Aussie Farmers Direct. So far great.
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Yes particularly as they are coming from the USA.
I find it so hard getting decent fruit and veg, I now only buy it from my local grocer but even then the quality is a bit hit and miss.
It is especially hard to get decent fruit, even if it looks ok it’s usaually very tart, sour, dry, or totally flavorless
Luckily we live near the Swan Valley in Perth, so at least in summer we try to get out to the growers so we can at least get decent grapes, watermelon and rockmelon that are in season, grown locally and taste like they should
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I never buy fruit and veg from supermarkets as I have a wonderful local fruit shop. I also buy only what’s in season.
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We were in a rush today, so braved our local Woolies instead of the green grocer. Looks like they’re packaging their carrots the same way they do the apples now, by hiding the bits that would normally make you decide not to purchase the things. This is exactly how this one looked after being taken out from the bag. No way to see how bad it was without opening the packet first.
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I find Avocadoes the most difficult to judge. Ripeness testing is easy, it’s what it looks like inside.So often it can be brown and unuseable or sometimes it has coarse inedible hard parts. I have contacted Avocado Australia and the equivalent NZ body who have replied saying they have high industry standards to sell the best fruit. But is this working?
Recently I bought 3 for $5 at one Coles. I selected with care but only one was edible. I returned the bad 2 and received my $5. However the lunch I was preparing for guests was not as I wanted.
I shop at both supermarkets and independents for fruit and veg. I experience the same disappointment with both.
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I always have a problem with the big supermarkets so called ‘fresh herbs’ particularly parsley and corriander. Once home they wilt within a couple of days, yet if I buy at Springvale I get a bunch twice the size and it lasts 10 days or so. The super markets definitely do not only not have fresh produce they charge twice the price for a very small bunch.
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I prefer not to buy fruit & vegies at a supermarket.
In general, they are selling most fruit in a semi-ripe state, but once it’s removed from the tree it never “ripens” - and often, it doesn’t even get any softer. Chewing peaches and nectarines and pears is like biting into a granny smith apple, which is nonsense.
The bananas go from green (in store) to brown, in a few days. They don’t keep well after you buy them.
Woolworths sells various salad vegetables in sealed packs, but I have been told they do this so they can seal them in with an inert gas, and once you pierce the film on the box they’re in, they wilt in no time.
Berries are often sold with a low price - which is almost always an indicator that they are about to hit their “use by” date. Use by dates aren’t displayed on these items, so they get away with it.
A lot of their stuff is imported, so it’s been a while since it saw a farm - then sent all over Aus., to regional distribution centres, to be stored again in vast cool rooms. BIG cool rooms don’t function properly - ask any refrigeration specialist. Then trucked to the back of all the regional supermarkets, left out of sight till it’s time to display them. The whole process is a recipe for stale produce. Even their grocery & dairy lines are hitting the shelves with “use by” dates that are far too close, already. I am rapidly losing confidence in their ability to stock their supermarkets with “fresh” anything at all, not just fruit & vegies.
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I would like to see a regulation about ‘new season’. It seems that the supermarkets apply this term to items just out of long term storage. It should relate to freshly off the tree.
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I was raised in Stanthorpe QLD, as kids we worked on our friend’s farms and helped with the pruning, thinning, and picking. The fruit (apples and stone fruit) were sent to the Brisbane markets within 2 days, they spent one or two days there, and then they were transported to retail shops which could take another two days. Then they were displayed for up to 3 days. Even the roadside stalls had fruit and veg at the farm gate that was picked at least two days ago.
My family opened a very large fruit shop in town and most of the time our product can from the Brisbane markets. NO farmer in the Granit Belt area was going to drive in with one case of size 68 Delicious apples and one case of peaches and one case of apricots. And the same went for vegies too. Most of the apples produced in the Stanthorpe area were sent to storage. At first there were large cold stores, but these changed in the 1960’s to CA storage, that is Controlled Atmosphere were the oxygen was replaced with nitrogen and then the temperature was reduced. This process really does stop the rotting process and you can keep fruit for up to a year without any change in nutrition. But ALL fruit stored this way has to be kept in refrigeration when you get it home.
If you take an apple in your hand, put the apple to your ear, and tap it lightly (don’t hit it hard) if the apple has crunch it will click. Smell stone fruit, it must smell like the fruit with a strong smell. Same goes for mangoes and tomatoes. I watch people feeling fruit for firmness; that has nothing to do with freshness, it is smell you are chasing, stop squeezing and spoiling the food!
I think the word fresh is rather misleading, and is that why Choice is asking this question? Fresh is picking it yourself, or stopping the truck at the farm gate (now 2 days old) or at the fruit and veg market (now 3 days old), or as it comes of the truck at your supermarket (4 days old), or in your store display (at least 5 days old). Fresh in the true sense of the word in a large country like Australia is impossible if you expect “picked this morning”! For me, after our family shut our fruit shop and opened a fast food shop, fresh means ready to eat now. Or fresh means that will ripen (if I put it with a banana) in two days.
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I am concerned about what chemical tratments fruit N Veg get to make them store longer. As mentioned in other resonses here…strawberried going mush after day of purchse and more.I am also concerned avbout the high level of overseas produce brought in when we have farmers ploughing their crops back in do to these cheaper o/s goods.It breaks my heart.
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I try to buy mine from the local farmers markets.
what I call fresh is PICKED THAT MORNING
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The Tamworth Growers Market, 35km away from here, starts before 7am on Saturdays, so it’s pretty difficult to pick much fruit that morning!
However, I try to pick cherries on Friday morning and evening as much as possible (avoiding heat of the day). The same goes for plums, apricots or any veg from the aquaponics, Friday evening picking is about as good as I can do for most things. If it’s just for personal consumption, then 5 mins between picking and eating is sometimes doable 
I’ve just had this - all organically grown fruit, the apricots were picked minutes earlier, cherries on Friday, strawberry this morning, and home made yoghurt from Friday.
DIY is certainly the best way to eat fresh, as it seems shops of all sizes, from reports in this thread, often can’t supply fresh produce.
For many cities this problem is related to excellent agricultural land being sold off and covered in houses, forcing food production ever further away, reducing the chances of ever finding fresh food that isn’t home grown.
I think the best plan is to dig up the lawn and put in a few fruit trees and an aquaponics system to grow your own veg and fish. Find a group of friends who want fresh food and are willing to do the same, and set up a food bartering system.
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I find strawberries a major problem. As they are an integral part of my special diet, I purchase at least 2 punnets every week year round, so have plenty of experience. Interestingly, the local ones during summer in Melbourne are more likely to be going off than the ones that come from Qld during winter. Don’t know whether it’s to do with packing/transport or different varieties of strawberries. And they are no better from my local greengrocer than from Coles/Woolies either.
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I expect produce in fruit and veg shop to be fresher than supermarket.some supermarket produce is great, mangoes, cherries, blueberries, others very tired , Chinese vegetables, apples, oranges. I would prefer seasonal vegetables and fruit. My fruitdhop does sometimes have old produce as well.
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I don’t buy any produce at Coles or Woolies. Initially it was because I have gone plastic free and more and more of their ‘fresh’ produce is pre-packaged in plastic. Also, after I started buying a lot of my produce at farmers markets, I noticed the difference in taste and freshness in a lot of things. It is disappointing to see Coles and Woolies ads for ‘fresh’ produce when it is clearly not ‘fresh’.
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Like others have commented - bright apples out of cold storage that are brown inside - can we not actually teach people that apples aren’t a year around fruit ? Ditto most other things - woody imported aspargus, foamy stone fruit and grapes that are like a leaking balloon after a day.
I try to at least shop by the seasons - so cherries ONLY in Dec, and oranges ONLY in winter. That said, I do use lemons, limes year around.
Who to trust ? Don’t know! Roadside vendors ? Pick-your-own seems the best option but not very practical. Woolies the “fressh food people” is the least credible logo out there. And even at Harris Farm I often have to point out rotten items - also they do seem to check more often than the big chains.
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