Abstract. The effect of recent impacts (less than 5 min old) on the light diffusely reflected from the surface of eleven apple cultivars was investigated under carefully controlled conditions. Although such fresh damage shows little of the browning typically associated with bruises, near-infrared measurements between 700 and 1100 nm could non-destructively distinguish between sound and damaged tissue. The largest change in reflectance occurred at 970 nm; following impacts of between 40 and 360 mJ, the reflectance from damaged tissue was about 8% less (median) than from sound tissue at 970 nm. Although cultivar made a small but significant (99.9% confidence) contribution to the observed change in reflectance, clear discrimination between sound and bruised tissue was possible for all cultivars studied. These results will aid design of instruments and algorithms for rapid identification of fresh bruises in apples to contain and ameliorate handling and grading problems.