Frozen broccoli is sold as florets cut to an agreed size with an agreed stalk length. Unlike frozen fruit it is blanched before freezing, and the blanching step is where the quality of the finished product is decided. Blanching inactivates the enzymes that would otherwise carry on working slowly in the freezer and produce the stale, hay-like off-flavour that ruins a vegetable after a few months in store. Under-blanch and the product degrades. Over-blanch and the floret softens, loses colour and falls apart on reheating. A supplier who can describe their blanch validation and their peroxidase check is telling you something more useful than any adjective on a brochure.
Seasonality and availability
Broccoli is harvested across a long season from June into October, with the best quality in the cooler parts of it. Product is frozen at harvest and supplied from cold store through the year. Because the season is long, broccoli is less exposed to the single-window risk that affects the soft fruits, but the quality of individual lots does vary with the weather at harvest and it is worth knowing the production date on the lot you are buying.
What the buyer checks at intake
- Floret size distribution against the specification, on a sieved sample.
- Stalk length against the specification. Long stalks are cheap weight.
- Colour, which should be a bright green rather than olive or yellow.
- Core temperature at minus eighteen degrees Celsius or colder.
- Blanch adequacy, by a peroxidase test if your laboratory runs one.
- Foreign vegetable matter, loose leaf and yellow florets against the tolerance.
Related standards and routes
Road reefer is the normal route. Vegetable buyers frequently ask for GLOBALG.A.P. at farm level as well as BRCGS or IFS Food at the plant, and pesticide residue compliance under Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 is checked more often on vegetables than on berries.