Providing fresh fruits for employees to snack on benefits companies in a lot of ways. Employees are able to ward off diseases, thereby lessening absenteeism in your office. Moreover, they become more focused, alert, motivated and creative. These benefits have significant effects on a company’s productivity as well as its revenues.
Yet, despite the aforementioned benefits, there are still businesses that remain apprehensive about making fruits a staple in their offices. One reason for this is that they worry about the short storage life of fresh produce. Indeed, keeping fruits in the office fresh for days can be challenging. Whereas chips and chocolates may last for months, fresh produce could become inedible in days. Of course, as these are supposedly investments, rotten fruits mean wasted money. No company wants to lose money, no matter how small it is.
However, this is not a problem without a solution. If you are having the same worry, know that there things you can do to keep your fruits fresh longer and avoid wastage. For one, you can order only what you need. Study the fruit consumption in your office. Doing this allows you to determine the number of fruits you need to purchase for X number of days.
You may think that, while buying only what you need allows you to avoid wastage, it requires additional energy or effort since you’d need to purchase fruits more often. The thing is, sourcing fruits for your office isn’t that difficult nowadays. There are fruit delivery companies who can bring the fruits you need to your office. There’s no need for you to go to the farmer’s market. You can just go online or make a call to place your order. There’s also no need to worry about the quality since reputable companies offer only fresh fruits.
Tips On Keeping Office Fruits Fresh Longer
Aside from ordering only what your employees can consume, you can also observe certain practices to keep fruits in your office fresh for a longer period of time.
Place your fruits in a container. Putting your fruits in a container like a basket keeps them in place. This also prevents them from rolling over each other, causing them to get bruised. When a fruit gets bruised, its appearance is not the only thing that’s affected; sometimes, even its taste gets altered.
Do not expose them to direct sunlight. Heat aids in the ripening of fruits. Therefore, when you store fresh produce in an area where sunlight is abundant, they ripen at a faster rate. To avoid this, store your office fruits in an area that’s cool and not exposed to direct sunlight.
Store ripe fruits in the fridge. Sometimes, it’s not unusual for newly purchased unripe fruits to turn ripe in a day or two. When this happens, it’s best to move them in the fridge to prolong their freshness and prevent them from rotting easily. One fruit that’s going to benefit from this is ripe banana. While doing this may cause the peel to blacken, what’s inside the peel remains edible.
Segregate your fruits. Certain fruits cannot be stored together because some bear certain properties which aren’t good for other types of fruits. To be more specific, fruits like kiwis and apples are sensitive to ethylene, a ripening agent. Storing ethylene-sensitive fruits alongside produce which are high in ethylene like banana, peaches, nectarines and mangoes could quicken their ripening process and eventually lead to their premature spoiling. So, make sure you separate ethylene-sensitive produce from high ethylene-producing fruits.
Rinse your berries before storing. When it comes to berries like raspberry, strawberry and blueberries, the number one problem is fungi or moulds. This is why you need to disinfect these fruits before storing. An effective way of getting rid of fungi and mould is to soak the berries in 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water. Keep them there for two minutes and place them on a paper towel. Dry them thoroughly before storing in the fridge.
Never store your berries wet. Doing this is going to promote mould growth. Apart from ensuring that they are dry before storing them, you can also place a paper towel in their container. The paper towel is going to absorb any moisture.
To learn more about how to keep fruits in the office fresh, call us at 01 4624811 today!