Ripeness is usually referred to as the quality of being ready to be collected or eaten. Fruit/vegetable quality is a concept based on several criteria which depend on the objective. When do you harvest fruit/vegetables from a plant, to arrive into the supermarket in a ‘fresh picked’ condition? Every day, consumers perform a simple subjective test in an attempt to measure the quality of fruit/vegetables they wish to purchase by pressing the surface with the thumb or by squeezing the fruit/vegetable in the hand, thus utilising the principle of deformation in either a penetration or compression manner.
