ANNEX 1 - TOTAL QUALITY SCORE FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

Total Quality Score is to apply only in the case sorting of chestnuts is done not only for decay but even for external appearance as explained in the footnote of the table; even taste sorting depends on the ability of the packinghouse manager to judge the raw flavour of chestnut when they arrive or when they leave the storage. It is in these both stages that TQS is important to code the sample.
The following step are required:

1. arrival of the chestnut sacks from the farmer; take 50 chestnuts from the sacks (random from all sacks);
2. watch for appearance (acceptable or fancy or reject);
3. remove the peel, biting and chewing, tasting for the sweetness (flat, good, very good);
4. size by view;
5. compute the TQS and applying the code for the farmer.

This operation requires longer time but it is very worthy for the discrimination of the farmer and to push them to provide better quality.

Appearance: fancy = intense and uniform color, free of defects, tuft presence
            acceptable = not uniform or less intense color or some defect or absence of tuft

Storage performance: if it is known that chestnut coming from a grower or from a field behave positively in the storage multiply the TQS by 2.