Handling of the bunch during and after harvesting is important in order to minimize
fruit bruising. In the ripe fruit, the oils are contained within the oil vacuoles.
When the fruit is bruised, the oils are released from the vacuoles and comes into
contact with hydrolyzing enzymes, which will break the triacylglycerols into free fatty
acid and partial triacylglycerols. The larger the extent of fruit bruising, the higher
will be the FFA level. Work by Bek Nielsen (1975) has shown that the FFA level
of crude palm oil extracted from heavily bruised fruits can rise to as high as 9%
within 40 minutes and to about 10% two hours after bruising. The rate of acidification
of unbruised fruitlets is from 0.1% to 0.3% over a 4-day period.