Fruits & Vegetables Online: Freshness, Storage and Seasonal Guide

Produce loses quality by the hour, not the day. When the item is picked off a shelf a kilometre away and reaches you in under half an hour, it has spent far less time in transit than the same item in a long warehouse chain.

Loose produce is weighed by the shop, and the weight actually supplied is what you pay for, so small variations in vegetables and fruit are normal and honest.

Order confidently: onions, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beans, gourds, cabbage, cauliflower, lemons, bananas, apples, oranges, and all packaged greens.

Be slightly more careful with very delicate items — ripe mangoes, papaya, guava, mushrooms and soft berries — and order them early in the day when stock is freshest.

Keep potatoes and onions separate, dark and dry. Never refrigerate potatoes. Store greens washed, dried and wrapped in a cloth or paper inside a box in the fridge.

Tomatoes ripen best on the counter and go mealy in the cold. Bananas release ethylene that ripens everything near them, so keep them alone. Coriander and mint last a week in a glass of water covered loosely.

Cut fruit should be eaten the same day. Whole citrus lasts two weeks in the fridge, apples up to a month.

Summer: mango, watermelon, muskmelon, litchi, cucumber, bottle gourd, ridge gourd. Monsoon: corn, jamun, pear, bitter gourd, tinda, spinach with care. Winter: orange, guava, custard apple, carrot, beetroot, peas, cauliflower, methi, mustard greens.

Buying in season is both cheaper and better. Off-season produce travels further and costs more for lower quality.

Photograph it and report it the same day. Fresh, perishable and dairy categories are handled fastest when raised immediately, and resolution can be a refund for the item.

Check the weight against the invoice for loose items. If the delivered weight is short, that is a straightforward correction.