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INF.5 (COPA/COGECA) UNECE RECOMMENDATION FOR APPLES Transmitted by: COPA/COGECA, on behalf of all members Introduction: UNECE Standard FFV-50 concerning the marketing and commercial quality control of APPLES as adopted by the Working Party at its 59th session will conclude its trial period in November 2005. On the European side, on 1st August 2005 Commission Regulation (EC) No 85/2004 will fully enter into force in 25 Member States, providing minimum size reductions. Furthermore, the European Commission, in his Working Document on this issue (DTR/AGRI C4_46/2004) also proposes the introduction of quality criteria based on sugar content (°brix) and firmness (kg/cm2). Both UNECE and EC requested interested parties and Member States to provide research data and scientific opinions to evaluate and consider the suitability of current standard provisions for sizing and quality criteria and their potential effects in the global fruit markets. In this paper COPA/COGECA presents the research results of two different studies, conducted during the same period in Southern and Northern Europe (Italy and Belgium) and sustained by a considerable number of Members States’ producers organisations, in the aim of emphasize the need for “individual countries/regions [...] to establish their own maturity standards, since it would be unreasonable to expect that standards can be simply transferred between countries or between cultivars”. Methodology notes: Cultivars: Italy: Golden Delicious, Red Delicious (Red Chief clone), Gala Belgium: Elstar, Jonagold, Braeburn Parameters measured: Content of soluble solids (refractometric method) Firmness Starch conversion (only Belgium) Streif Index Background color The Italian researches have also considered parameters variability with Low and High crop load. Batches: Italy: 200 apples for each cultivar both in mountain areas (600-700m) and valley (200-250m) picked on the same day (apart for Gala) B