Continuing its mission to cut food waste, the supermarket is selling greener satsumas and clementines, prompted by recent higher than average early season temperatures in Spain where the easy peelers originate.
In order to accelerate the colouring process, growers have been putting the fruit into a ripening room, but this extra handling has led to a small amount being damaged and therefore going to waste.
By taking out this stage shoppers will also be able to benefit from the move as the citrus will have an extra shelf life of up to two days meaning less potential food waste in the home.
“At the moment green easy peelers fall outside of the general quality specifications set by UK supermarkets but Tesco has made the leading move in order to cut down on food waste,” said Tesco citrus buyer Debbie Lombaard.
“As a result of this move to take out a handling stage in the journey from farm to fork shoppers will gain extra freshness for their satsumas and clementines.”
The fruit will be sold as ‘Perfectly Ripe Early Season Satsumas’ and will cost the same as orange coloured ones. Satsumas, and other easy peelers as well as oranges, initially grow as a green fruit but change colour to orange as nights cool.
Over the last few years, warmer Spanish temperatures in the early growing season for satsumas in September and October have remained higher into the autumn, delaying the natural process by which the fruit turns orange.
