EU rules ban sale of 'too small' kiwis
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 26/06/2008
A wholesaler has been banned from selling a consignment of kiwi fruits because EU laws deemed them too small.
Tim Down, a market trader for 25 years, said he was not permitted even to give away the 5,000 Chilean fruits, each of which is about the size of a small hen's egg and weighs about 60g.
Mr Down said his family run firm would lose several hundred pounds in sales because of the ban.
advertisement"It is bureaucratic nonsense, they are perfectly fit to eat," Mr Down said at his stall at the Wholesale Fruit Centre in Bristol. Inspectors from the Rural Payments Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), made a random check on his stall, and found a number of his kiwis weighed 58g, four grams below the required minimum of 62g.
Mr Down said that 4g in weight was the equivalent of about one millimeter in diameter.
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The rules have previously banished curved cucumbers, straight bananas and skinny carrots. "The inspectors visit us on a random basis, probably two to three times monthly and select items at random that they wish to inspect," said Mr Down.
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