Fourth range Melons

All those varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables ready for consumption are called fourth range fruit and vegetable products.
They are fresh fruits and vegetables, already washed, dried, cut, packaged in trays or in plastic bags and therefore ready for consumption or to be put on the table. Among the fourth range products we consider the fresh fruit and vegetable products, single or mixed with others, that during the post-harvesting processing are subject to selection, sorting, trimming, cutting, washing and packaging in bags or sealed containers and that, through the cold chain, are traded on the fruit and vegetable market ready for immediate consumption or after cooking.

The fourth range fruit and vegetable products, included fourth range melons, meet new consumption styles through a preparation and a presentation that are functional both to the consumer and to modern distribution.
Fourth range melons can be used to prepare tray of sliced melons ready for consumption and to prepare fruit salads.

In supermarkets the space assigned to fourth range products, included melons, has greatly increased in recent years: while shopping, in fact, bags of fresh fruits and vegetables ready for consumption are definitely more appealing. Among the advantages of the purchase of fourth range products, time saving is one of the aspects to be highlighted.
Among disadvantages of the purchase of fourth range fruit and vegetable products , included fourth range melons, there is, of course, the higher price compared with the price of fresh fruits and vegetables. These products are certainly more expensive of their unprocessed equivalent (usually cost 5-6 times more), but in addition to the service offered to consumers, it is above all the process of production, from cultivation to cooled distribution, that has a high cost.

The first stage of processing of the fourth range vegetables and fruits is a careful hand sorting to remove the altered or unsuitable parts for the processing, to later wash and cut them.
The next step is the packaging of fruit and vegetable products involved: fourth range melons are usually packaged with other fruit varieties to prepare fruit salads, however for this kind of packaging it is not possible to use a simple plastic bag. The material used is studied for each kind of product.

Regulations governing labeling of the 4th range products is a form of guarantee and protection of the consumer: for this reason, consumers should be able to properly read information on labels of every product, in this way they would be able to take conscious decisions when purchasing these products. In fact, the key objective of the regulation is to provide, through a punctual and rigorous labeling, an accurate description of the product, of its components, ingredients, nutritional values and of the functions that they can play.

Fourth range fruit and vegetable products are more and more demanded: created in the beginning in the wake of changes of the lifestyles, for the necessity to save time, for their functionality and for the fact that they guarantee hygiene, the 4th range products are nowadays preferred by almost an Italian out of two, despite the fact that the price is on average five/six times higher compared to the unpacked product.