Despite its rosy and firm(-ish) exterior, the common guava imported from Taiwan hides a rotten secret…
*Cue some scary music*
…a literally rotting core.
And that doesn’t bode well for fruit imports from Taiwan, especially when their pineapples were discovered to have rotten cores just 2 weeks ago too.
“Black Heart” Guava found in NTUC FairPrice
In light of the rotten pineapple issue, 67-year-old Fang ZhenMing (方振铭), decided to contact a reporter at Shin Min Daily (新明日报) to complain about the guavas he recently bought.
He went to the NTUC FairPrice supermarket at Jalan Tiga in Kallang and bought two boxes of Taiwan guavas.
Each box contains two guavas and the boxes cost him S$3.95 each.
Back home, he noticed that the skin of the guava still looked kind of greenish, and when pressed, the fruit felt a bit hard, so he decided to leave them aside to ripen before eating.
However, he has also heard about pineapples with rotten cores from Taiwan and felt a bit uneasy about his purchase.
On April 5, he decided to cut the guavas open.
To his surprise (or not), all the guavas he bought had mushy, brownish cores – rotten to the core, basically.
Being a smart consumer, he returned the guavas to the supermarket, but since he lost the receipt, the FairPrice staff only allowed him to exchange the rotten guavas for new ones.
Thinking everything’s good now, Mr Fang only cut into the guavas the next morning.
The new ones all have rotten cores too.
This time around, he kept the receipt so he took the spoiled guavas back to FairPrice to get a refund, and he got it.
Mr Fang was quoted as saying, “The quality of Taiwanese fruits is not very good this time.”
NTUC FairPrice apologizes to their customers
FairPrice is aware of the issue and is paying close attention to the matter.
They have started carrying out extra quality sampling checks to ensure that the quality of the guavas they imported from Taiwan are good enough to be sold to their customers.
The spokesperson from FairPrice also emphasized that the company takes food quality and safety issues seriously and that they are committed to maintaining high standards.
FairPrice also have a Freshness Guarantee policy so if a customer bought say… fruits with rotten cores, they can return the fruits to the same supermarket outlet to get a replacement or a refund.
The bane of all guava farmers – the Guava fruit fly
Well, actually, the guava fruit fly is only one of the many pests that lurrvvveee the guava.
And that’s not including fungal and algal diseases which pose their own respective headaches to guava farmers everywhere too!
What likely had happened is that an adult female fruit fly laid its eggs under the skin of the guava.
Once hatched, the maggots from the eggs will burrow straight to the core and start their feeding frenzy, causing the core of the fruit to turn brown and mushy.
Oddly enough, infected guavas will usually become discoloured and will emit a foul smell, but in this case, the damage is likely in its early stages and hence, the guavas still looked like normal guavas.
In fact, if you’re “lucky”, you might even find some of these maggots falling out of those seemingly delicious-looking guavas you’ve just bought…
And this is me speaking from personal experience by the way *shudder*
These are the maggots that have feasted on the core until they are full, and are now ready to pupate in the soil.
Featured Image: Google Maps