Why we ship lemon at +12 °C and not +8 °C
Kütdiken held below +10 °C takes chilling injury that shows as rind pitting only after the container is opened. Our long-hold rooms run +11 to +13 °C — warmer than most buyers expect, and deliberately so.
Most buyers assume colder is safer. For lemon it is the opposite, and getting this wrong is one of the more expensive mistakes in citrus.
Kütdiken held below +10 °C takes chilling injury. It presents as rind pitting, brown staining and, in bad cases, a collapse of the flavedo — and critically, none of it appears while the fruit is cold. The damage becomes visible after the container is opened and the fruit warms at destination, which is exactly when it turns into a claim against a lot that looked sound at loading.
Our long-hold rooms run +11 to +13 °C and our reefer set-point for lemon is +12 °C. That is warmer than buyers expect and we are asked to lower it fairly often. We explain why we will not: the fruit that arrives at +8 °C looks fine on the tally and fails on the shelf a week later.
The related detail is that lemon should not go into store wet. Rind staining from surface moisture at loading is a separate defect from chilling injury and it is equally avoidable.