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Abstract
Report Introduction: Many Golden Delicious apples produced in the Northwest are packed and shipped in cell-pack shipping containers. These containers are used because the cell-pack box, a corrugated fiberboard box with double-face corrugated fiberboard partitions and pads that form individual apple cells, is believed to protect the soft-fleshed, easily bruised Golden Delicious apples better than other containers available. The cells are made to fit apples of different sizes and six different sizes of boxes are used. These containers cost more, require more labor to pack, waste more space in storage and transport vehicles, and cost more to handle than do uniform-size tray-pack boxes (fiberboard boxes with molded trays). The purpose of this study was to find out: (1) How much the cost of marketing Golden Delicious apples could be reduced if they were packed and shipped in tray-pack boxes; and (2) if fruit bruising would be greater or less if the apples were packed in tray-pack instead of cell-pack boxes.