Dates - Tropical and Subtropical Fruits: Postharvest Physiology, Processing and Packaging - page 185

contaminants that may reach the dates, adequately cleans
and sanitizes all date contact surfaces, using materials for
date containers and date packaging materials that are safe
and suitable, and uses a HACCP program to check for
possible contamination and assure that GMPs are being
followed. Measures such as sorting, cleaning, and metal
detecting must be used to protect against the inclusion of
extraneous material and metal in dates; measures such as
fumigation, irradiation, or controlled heating must be ade-
quate to destroy or prevent the growth of undesirable insects
and microorganisms. Adequate treatments for by-products
must be disposed off without contaminating processing fa-
cilities (Hyder, 2006).

tial for undesirable microbiological, chemical, and physi-
cal deterioration or contamination. This will require careful
monitoring of such factors as time, temperature, moisture,
and so on, via a HACCP program. The hazards, critical lim-
its inspection procedure, and remedies in postharvesting of
date palm are shown in Table 10.3.
European markets demand that the growers document
the quality-control processes used, especially a report con-
cerning treatment against insects. Such a report includes
a list of the materials permitted for use and approved by
an official agent, in addition to the timetable of the spray-
ing with details of materials used, the date, concentrations,
number of days before harvesting, and the level of residue
of pesticides (Glasner et al., 2002).

HACCP in date processing
The main criteria governing the date processing and pack-
aging industry are national and international codes and
standards, HACCP system, and finally, the specific condi-
tions set by individual customers/importers. The increasing
competition in the international date market requires the ex-
porters to implement the mentioned codes and standards in
the postharvest treatments of their products and also in their
packaging houses. Implementing numerous criteria set by
national and international bodies would inevitably increase
the retail price of date and its by-products (Raoufat and
Heshmati, 2001). It is necessary to process, package, and
store dates under conditions that will minimize the poten-

BY-PRODUCT UTILIZATION (DATE PITS)
Date fruit contains 10-15% pit by weight. The pits
are a major by-product of date processing (Almana and
Mahmoud, 1994). The date pit consists of 5-6.5% protein,
9-14% fat, and 50-75% nitrogen-free extract. Minerals of
date pits are 1-1.8% of total date (Bermink 1994). The ex-
tracted oil of date pit is yellow and light green color with a
pleasant aroma and taste (Khodaparast et al., 2007). In gen-
eral, the pits of different date palm cultivars have different
physical and chemical characteristics including dry matter
content, total phenolics content, and antioxidant capacity
(Al-Turki et al., 2010a).

Table 10.3. Hazards, critical limits, inspection procedure, and remedies in postharvest of date palm.

Hazard Source Critical Limits Inspection Practice Remedies

Water: microbiological,
chemical, and physical
hazards

International standards Weekly sampling and

testing

Clarification and purification

Raw date: biological,
chemical, and physical
hazards

Factory standards Sampling and testing each

consignment

Rejection/disinfecting date
consignment

Storage Factory standards Sampling and testing each

consignment (45-day
period)

Disinfestations/temperature
control

Processing: disinfesting,
washing, sorting,
processing, and
packaging

Factory standards Sampling and testing after

each operation

Return to previous
operation(s)

Metal in final product Nil Using metal detector Reject and control

Final product Customer, factory and

national standards

Sampling/testing product
batches

Reject/withhold
unacceptable products

Source: Adapted from Raoufat and Heshmati (2001).