Prunes

Dehydrated Plums of the variety “Agen” "D’ente" processed as follows:

The plums will be harvested when ripe. The fruit will be transported immediately in plastic baskets or shallow stackable wooden pallet boxes to the de-hydration plant.  The fresh plums will be well washed, then sorted to remove foreign matter (including wood, and leaf matter) and damaged or unsuitable fruits. The fruits will then be laid out onto metallic wire mesh trays one fruit deep. Full trays stacked onto tray carriers, and tray carriers wheeled onto rail tracks and are fed into gas operated de-hydration chambers. Drying is controlled very carefully and the fruits are dried to a moisture level of 21-23% humidity (normally referred to as "Natural condition") this process takes approximately 48 hours. The drying procedure will be such that the fresh fruit begins its drying at a cooler temperature, the temperature is increased gradually up to final dehydration temperature. This system will produce a prune which is more evenly black, with almost zero brown fruits which arises when a standard high temperature dehydration process is employed.  The resultant fruit will be clean without embedded dirt in flesh folds.

The prunes are then removed from the mesh drying trays. They are inspected for proper drying. Those prunes which due to their characteristics do not dry sufficiently to allow proper preservation are disposed of/re-processed. The product is then graded/calibrated according to size. The sound quality product is then stored in stackable shallow pallet boxes in temperature controlled, and pest-controlled stores until required for packing and shipping.

The prunes will be clean, of sound quality, wholesome and healthy, typical of the type specified, and of size to be comply with the specification size according to industry standards.

At packing, the prunes will be very well cleaned by blowing, sieving, aspiration, and operator selection, and will be metal detected.

Natural Condition French Prunes / Natural Condition Argentinian Prunes