Pitted sour cherry is a bakery and dairy staple across central and eastern Europe, and it is the product where the specification has to be most precise about a single hazard. Pitting is mechanical, it is never perfect, and the two things a buyer has to agree are the tolerance for whole pits and the tolerance for pit fragments, together with how each is counted and on what sample size. A specification that says pit-free without defining the tolerance and the method is not a specification, it is an invitation to a dispute.
Seasonality and availability
Sour cherry has one of the shortest harvests in the Ukrainian range, typically running for a few weeks from late June into July. The whole year’s volume is processed in that window and pitting capacity is the bottleneck. Product is drawn from cold store for the rest of the year. Because the window is so short, quality varies from the start to the end of it as the fruit ripens on the tree, and lots frozen at the two ends of the harvest can differ noticeably in Brix and acidity.
What the buyer checks at intake
- Pits and pit fragments on the agreed sample size, using the agreed counting method.
- Core temperature at minus eighteen degrees Celsius or colder.
- Calibre against the specification.
- Brix and titratable acidity, since the sweet to sour balance drives the recipe.
- Stalk content and foreign vegetable matter.
- Colour and drip on a thawed sample.
Related standards and routes
Road reefer to central Europe is the standard route. Bakery buyers frequently ask for BRCGS or IFS Food certification and for the pitting control to be described in the supplier approval pack.