Truffle Grading Proposal

Proposed Truffle Grading Standard for the North American Truffle Growers Association

Black Truffle

This document is a proposed Draft for a Truffle Grading Standard for the North American Truffle Growers Association.

Please review and enter comments and suggestions below.

Thank you for your contribution.

7 comments

  • Jeffrey Coker
    3 years ago

    1. This proposal is almost verbatim the UNECE Standard FFV-53 with some added (somewhat complicating) language about the percentages of classes that can be exposed by trimming and a couple of other things. Why not just endorse the UNECE standards and prevent the confusion of having yet another set of standards? [In our case at Burwell Farms, we are also being inspected by the state of NC and following both state and USDA food safety and packaging rules.]

    2. The stated purpose of the proposal is to “standardize the quality requirements for use of the NATGA logo”. Is logo use currently a problem? Are we talking about use of the NATGA logo only on food packaging, or also on grower websites? If a grower chooses not to use NATGA’s class system, then should they remove the NATGA logo from all their materials?

  • Holly Martin
    3 years ago

    Species: Since both T. Gibbosum and T. Oregonense are described as Oregon White Truffle, it might be useful to include seasonal designation, i.e. Oregon White Truffle (Spring) for T. Gibbosum and Oregon White Truffle (Winter) for T. Oregonense.

    II.C (iv): This is just a drafting suggestion. I found the second sentence, as organized, a little hard to follow. My suggested text has all the same information, just reorganized: Provided the truffles retain their essential characteristics as regards the quality, the keep quality and presentation, the following defects may be allowed: defects in shape, defects in development, defects in coloring, superficial bruising, and slight superficial damages caused by pests.

    Over all, nice job and thanks for all the good work!

  • Karen Passafaro
    3 years ago

    I would add a few pictures of what you are recommending with packaging and labels

  • A
    Fabrice Caporal
    3 years ago

    I like the Identification requirement. Now do those classification apply to a member of NATGA importing and reselling truffles? What then should be done with identification?

  • A
    Fabrice Caporal
    3 years ago

    I never heard of the Icon class, interesting

  • A
    Fabrice Caporal
    3 years ago

    Weight and shape characterizations do not apply uniformly across species. It looks like the document is centered around T. melanosporum. It would be a great challenge to find a 300g oregon truffle… another example is that Tuber magnatum is rarely round.

  • A
    Fabrice Caporal
    3 years ago

    In Definition of Produce we say “species of the the genus Tuber” yet in the list of truffles below we proceed to include Oregon truffles which are not of the Tuber genus. I would be in favor of changing the definition of truffle to say what is in Wikipedia:

    “A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber.”

    Or if we want to be less scientific we could say:

    “A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber.”

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