You Do...What? Episode 5: Fresh Produce Quality Control

How do you check if an avocado is ripe or not? Definitely not by pressing it. At least that's what Sylvia Yong from RedMart's quality assurance team would tell you.

Ms Yong, 27, leads a team of quality control personnel at RedMart, an online grocery store based in Singapore. The team codified a set of standards, recorded in ring-bundled booklets found around the warehouse, to help identify the quality of fresh produce just by looking at the appearance. This helps to reduce the need of having to judge the ripeness of a fruit by pressing it, in turn reducing the number of times the fruit has to be handled, maintaining the freshness of the produce.

One of Ms Yong's proudest achievements is reducing the number of spoilt broccolis in the warehouse.

After noticing a large number of broccolis going bad consistently years ago, she found out that the holes in the plastic packaging were ineffective in draining water from within, causing the broccolis to be soaked in water and rot after a while. Ms Yong then worked with the suppliers and devised a method which involved a change in the packaging. With a more breathable packaging, the broccolis are now able to last longer in the warehouse.

In this episode of You Do...What?, host Toh Yan Wei takes a peek into RedMart's warehouse, and learns how to pick the freshest produce. Can she make the cut? Watch to find out.

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About "You Do...What?"

As technology advances, some jobs that were non-existent in the past have emerged, while some other jobs have withstood the test of time.

In this 7-part series, join host Toh Yan Wei (Chinese Media Group NewsHub Journalist) as she gets hands-on experience with some unconventional jobs in a journey of new discoveries.

"You Do...What?" is one of 16 short-form video series produced by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), as part of the second season of SPH's Public Service Broadcast content. A new episode is uploaded on to the zaobao.sg website and mobile app every fortnight, starting from 21 August 2018. All episodes come with Chinese and English subtitles.