Harvesting, handling and selling breadfruit

When to pick, how to get fruit to the buying station undamaged, and what the programme pays for.

When a fruit is ready

Breadfruit is picked mature-green for cooking and for the processing centre. Signs of maturity:

the skin turns from bright green to yellow-green and the surface pattern flattens
small drops of dried white latex appear on the skin
the fruit feels firm but no longer rock-hard

Fully ripe (soft, sweet) fruit is for eating fresh or for desserts, and does not travel.

Picking

Never let fruit drop. Cut the stem with a pole knife, leaving 3–5 cm of stalk, and catch or lower the fruit. A dropped fruit bruises and rots within two days. Pick in the cool of the morning.

Handling

stand fruit stalk-down on grass or leaves for an hour so latex drains
do not stack more than three deep; use crates, not sacks
keep out of the sun; deliver the same day
a mature-green fruit keeps about a week at room temperature, three weeks at 12–13°C. Do not refrigerate below 10°C — it goes brown inside.

Grades at the buying station

Grade A: 1–2.5 kg, clean, no cuts or rot — fresh market and export
Grade B: any size, minor blemishes — flour, chips and frozen product
Reject: rot, cuts, immature

Both A and B are bought. The floor price is published on the Progress page and posted at the centre; it is reviewed each season with the producer groups.

Storing your own supply

For the household, cook and freeze: peel, core, cut in wedges, blanch 3 minutes, cool, bag and freeze. Keeps six months. Roasted whole fruit also freezes well.

Freeze-drying at the centre

Mature-green fruit delivered in good condition can go straight to the freeze-drying line as well as to the flour mill. Freeze-dried cubes and powder keep for ten years or more, weigh a fifth of the fresh fruit, rehydrate in minutes and hold their nutrients — which is why the centre can keep buying at peak season without spoilage, and why the floor price holds. Grade B fruit is preferred for cubes and powder; clean Grade A slices go for snack packs. See the recipe corner for how it is done and how to use it.