The U.S.-based National Mango Board (NMB) hopes its online seminar today to educate the industry on the 'ongoing progress' of ripening protocols that should ultimately improve fruit quality for consumers.

The 'webinar' will be held this afternoon and is focused on providing retailers and importers with crucial and detailed information about the NMB's ripening protocols it published earlier this year.

NMB marketing director Megan McKenna told www.freshfruitportal.com this webinar was the fourth in two years and would build upon the information provided in earlier sessions.

"We previewed a new tool on the April webinar that was our new ripening protocol and this webinar is a follow-up to the April one, so it's a deep dive into the protocol going more into the specifics of ripening mangoes in the United States," McKenna said.

"Basically it's a progression from the April webinar with more detail from the protocol itself in a webinar format."

McKenna said she believed the industry still had a lot of progress to make, citing other commodities for which ripening protocols were also being developed.

"If you look at other industries such as avocados and pears, it's an ongoing process when it comes to ripening produce for U.S. consumers," she said.

"The mango industry has invested research as well as time with partnerships with retailers to really help execute this ripening program, but there's always a lot of room for improvement.

"You'll hear on the webinar consumer acceptance of ripe fruit is very high compared to unripe fruit so we're really looking at what the U.S. consumer is asking for and this is one of the main things."

The information provided is a result of the NMB's Ripe Ready to Eat Mango program, which concluded certain aspects of the ripening program such as temperature were vital for the fruit.

McKenna explained the overall aim of the webinar was to both increase mango consumption within the United States and achieve the best fruit quality possible.

"There's opportunity for the retail industry as to how to ripen mangoes and that's what this webinar is set up to do," she said.

"The ultimate goal is to have more U.S. consumers buying mangoes, improving the quality and giving them a ripe piece of fruit at retailers so this is a great way to do that."

The webinar will begin at 4 pm EDT.

To register for the National Mango Board's webinar, click here.

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www.freshfruitportal.com