The consumer organization dTest decided to measure fruit and vegetables bought on the same day at a market, supermarket, discount store and convenience store. To make the comparison more interesting, she also added goods from Lidl, Germany.
Specifically, it was the purchase of cucumbers, carrots, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, red apples and strawberries. “Testing and purchasing of samples took place according to precise rules. In one day we visited nine stores and bought in all according to the prepared list. Each type of store had two representatives – for large supermarkets they were Globus and Kaufland, discount stores represented Penny Market and Lidl. “Then we bought from two different traders and went to two evenings. The ninth stop was the German branch of the Lidl chain,” said Hana Hoffmannová, editor-in-chief of dTest magazine.
It was all bought at the turn of May and June, a total of 52 samples traveled to the laboratory. To make the research as comprehensive as possible, there were also vegetables in organic quality – we managed to get organic cucumbers and organic carrots.
The sensory evaluation had the greatest weight in the test – ie appearance, color, taste, smell, texture or consistency, intensity of defects and overall impression. Dozens of evaluators solved all this.
Although the tasting did not end in disaster, it was not without flaws. “Carrots and cucumbers were bothered by a bitter taste, tomatoes smelled of emptiness. For packaged apples, evaluators encountered rot and bruises for a change. As far as organic products were concerned, carrots that were criticized for bitterness did not work,” dTest calculates.
The laboratory also used a special method to measure how the individual fruits are (un) ripe from the squeezed juice. Apples were the best in this respect, cucumbers the worst. And at (imm) maturity, it didn’t matter what kind of fruit and vegetable shop they came from.
The test also examined the quality of the fruit purchased. It is divided into two or three stages. “Goods in the second class are tolerated to have a higher incidence of defects in shape and appearance than in the first and therefore in the” Extra “Class. The samples in our testing declared the first quality, “Hoffmann described.
An important indicator is also the so-called caliber, ie the size of the fruit. The information can be found on the labels and is usually given as the transverse diameter of the fruit at the widest point or as the weight of one piece.
And it was the measurement of caliber that showed big differences in apples, which varied by up to two centimeters in diameter and up to twice the weight depending on where dTest bought them.
“The caliber of goods sold in pieces is especially important. For example, the price of lettuce in convenience stores and discounts was the same, but due to the higher weight, those from discount stores came out better,” Hoffmann said.
At first glance, there was also a difference in caliber between samples from the Czech Republic and Germany. “Except for strawberries and tomatoes, heavier and larger pieces were sold in Germany and the goods were, with the exception of iceberg lettuce and cucumbers, more expensive. However, in the overall evaluation, samples purchased in the Czech Republic performed better with a predominance of 4: 2. better sensory evaluation, “said dTest.
The end of the test was a “search” for pesticides – for organic cucumbers and organic carrots, as well as for strawberries from the market and supermarket. It was not without problems here either.
“We expected absolute purity of organic production. We were surprised by the finding of difenoconazole in organic carrots of Italian origin at the very limit of the tolerated limit. The results of strawberries from farmers’ markets, which analyzed the presence of six pesticides, their concentrations did not exceed the legal limits, it shows that farmers’ markets do not automatically mean bio-quality, “concluded the results of the testing by the editor-in-chief of dTest.
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