No more mush with pear that stays fresh

WAITING for a pear to ripen in the fruit bowl can take ages. Then, if you don’t eat it straight away, it turns to inedible mush.

Now scientists believe they have developed a technique to guarantee perfectly ripe pears. They even hope it could lead to sliced pears sold pre-packed in stores – to challenge the dominance of ready-prepared apples.

So far, methods to keep apples perfect – which often involve applying a substance called SmartFresh – have not been used on pears. This is because apples are picked when ready to eat, while pears are harvested unripe.

However, Professor Amit Dhingra, of Washington State University in the US, has found a way by adapting SmartFresh to rekindle ripening – after studying the fruit’s genetic make-up.

His team mixed their new compound in water then soaked pears treated with SmartFresh for 24 hours. ‘Five days later we found it had ripened beautifully,’ he said. He has now signed a partnership with US food company Crunch Pak.