Why the ripe-to-eat sticker should disappear

One of the biggest challenges in supermarkets, I find, is finding the perfect avocado. You would think that with the arrival of the ‘ready to eat’ variant, the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, that's not really the case, because even if you drop such a ripe specimen in your cart, you are absolutely not guaranteed the perfect buttery soft specimen. Too soft, covered in brown spots, or if you're unlucky, just not hard enough. Our trust in the green fruit is gone. Journalist Teun van de Keuken argues in the Volkskrant for completely abolishing that sticker. Because the ripe-to-eat sticker makes avocados fewer and fewer ripe, according to Van de Keuken.

Because even if the sticker tells us that the specimen is ready to eat, we love to go wild on the bin of avocados. Feel, squeeze, and then throw the least perfect one back on the shelf. And with that, we only make the big avocado problem worse. Because through those touches, the green rascals are left with bruises, causing them to overripen. And with all those leftover avocados, we create a lot of food waste, according to Van de Keuken.

The solution? No more stickers and only put hard avocados in the store. They survive better when squeezed and do not cause disappointment when the expectation of ripeness is not met. “It would be better to stop with the ripe-to-eat stickers and educate people a bit. If customers know that all avocados are (still) hard, they don't need to squeeze them,” he concludes.

But what about the last-minute guacamole or my acute craving for a thick slice of sourdough with buttery soft avocado and a poached egg?