Supplying Quality Cantaloupe for Fresh-cut Processing

Fresh Cut
January 2000

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Providing safe, tasty fresh-cut cantaloupe for grocery stores or restaurants is a process that begins down on the farm, according to Steve Martori. Thanks to technology developed at Martori Farms, as well as new hybrid cantaloupe varieties, Martori is better able to supply the kind of high quality melons fresh-cut processors need to keep their customers happy.

"We use varieties where the first criteria are the internal characteristics: taste, sugar levels and meat content," Martori explains. "You want a small seed cavity as opposed to a large cavity so it increases the yield to the processor."

Founded 60 years ago by Steve’s uncles, Martori Farms was an outgrowth of a produce wholesale operation founded around the turn of the last century by his grandfather, Peter Martori. In the 1930s, the family patriarch sent his two eldest sons to the West to source fresh produce and, by the end of that decade, a full-blown growing and shipping operation had been born.

Steve’s career with the family operation has spanned 30 years and he’s witnessed many changes, but the most dramatic of those have taken place only in the last five or six years, especially as fresh-cut has "exploded."

Significant Business
"We do a significant business with some very large fresh-cut users," he explains. "About five or six years ago, we started researching and developing the technology for fresh-cut and determining what type of melons and procedures are best to create product with the longest possible shelf life. We created an environment where we could provide fresh-cut at the source and distribute it across a broad region, at least half the United States.

"Through our experience with fresh-cut, we learned a lot about sanitation and bacteria levels. It changed the way we sanitize our fruit today."

Martori melons are packed into bins destined for processing operations or into cartons for other customers. The company has installed automatic bin-filling equipment because large processing operations have found they can save labor by emptying bigger containers at the receiving end.

To enhance shelf life, all shed-packed melons harvested for Martori Farms are washed and scrubbed in a multi-step process before packing.

"We take field debris and residues off the melons," Martori explains. "The netting on the cantaloupe serves as a refuge for bacteria, therefore, it is important to use a brushing action when washing them. The biggest enemy to shelf life, we found, is bacteria and the development of molds and yeasts. To maintain the flavor and shelf life of melons, you have to control bacterial levels."

Ripeness Is Crucial
Fresh-cut cantaloupe quality also depends upon ripeness and sugar content and Martori Farms has developed additional technology to help assure that melons arrive at processing plants at just the right stage.

"We use color sorting and infrared sorting in combination," Steve explains. "The greener the melon is, the less ripe it is. Color sorting counts pixels, so we have a non-invasive method that electronically sorts melons, telling us the color. Then we combine those results with infrared sorting, which gives us the density or consistency of the melon internally. Correlating the two indicates the level of Brix.

"For shelf life we’ve found 10 percent to 13 percent is the best range. Many regional processors who receive the product, cut it that night and have it in stores the next day receive the added benefit of an extended shelf life," Martori explains. "In general, though, consumers call 10 percent Brix a sweet melon. At 9 percent, generally it will be acceptable, but there’s no ‘wow,’ no real strong response.

"When you get to 11, 12 and 13 percent, that’s when they say, ‘What a fabulous melon!’ Above 13 percent, some people continue to look at it positively, but you’ll start getting some negative comments such as ‘too sweet.’ Others will say it has kind of a fermenting taste to it. I’d say the majority of people like real high Brix, but you will have some negative comments. In that center range of 10 percent to 13 percent, everybody seems to like it. In general, consumers also like a melon that is firm, but not crunchy."

Hybrids Boost Quality
Until recently, maintaining the flavor and texture consumers prefer in cantaloupes was more difficult during off-season months when Martori Farms imports melons from Mexico or Central America to supply customers. New hybrid varieties of cantaloupe, however, bred for desirable processing characteristics, are helping to change the face of the offshore deal.

According to the results of a recent study led by Dr. Mark Uebersax of Michigan State University, two new Asgrow cantaloupe varieties — Copa de Oro and Magellan — offer the taste, texture and intense orange color fresh-cut processors often have trouble finding, especially during the winter.

Conducted at the MSU Food Processing Center, the research showed Magellan and Copa de Oro both maintained stable quality characteristics in various production areas, across seasons and even after refrigerated storage over a 21-day period.

"I have been told frequently by fresh-cut operators they would like cantaloupe sourcing to be comparable to sourcing lettuce and carrots, where quality fluctuations aren’t as volatile," reports Matthew Barreras, Asgrow’s fresh-cut liaison. "The first hurdle was finding reliable year-round supplies. And that’s what Asgrow accomplished when it developed the first Mission Line of hybrid cantaloupes in the late 1980s.

Improving Quality
"The problem is not quantity anymore, however. It’s quality. We’re all taking a closer look at quality measurements. Choosing the right hybrid has become very scientific."

During the study, fruit from eight widely planted hybrids was evaluated upon arrival in East Lansing, Michigan after five to seven days of travel from growing areas in California, Arizona and Mexico. Up to 21 days from harvest, a second set of evaluations was made and researchers also measured the effects of refrigeration on the fruit, testing samples for sweetness, firmness, color and other qualities.

Tabulated results show both Magellan and Copa de Oro exceeded the minimum 9 percent Brix needed by fresh-cut operators upon arrival and maintained favorable readings throughout the test. In fruit firmness, too, both varieties had ideal scores for fresh-cut processing throughout the test.

In color comparisons, the two Asgrow varieties had values less than 40 (the smaller the number, the better) while other varieties scored in the high 50s, a color range many believe is too light to appeal to consumers who buy fresh-cut cantaloupe.

Leo Zanoni, Asgrow’s produce industry liaison, is the first to point out that flavor and consumer satisfaction can’t be measured solely in the laboratory. That’s why Asgrow sampled both Magellan and Copa de Oro at the recent PMA exposition in Atlanta. It was the ultimate test for off-season melons.

A Taste Consumers Love
"The taste and aroma were outstanding," Zanoni reports. "People couldn’t believe they were off-season melons. Their immediate follow-up question was, ‘Where can I get these cantaloupes?’"

One answer for fresh-cut processors, of course, is Martori Farms. Steve says the Asgrow melons also meet standards of small seed cavity and low unbound water, making them desirable for fresh-cut.

"Even though we generally sell them by the pound to processors, the ones with the smaller cavity will have a higher yield and therefore a lower cost of net product per pound to the processor," Steve adds. "It’s going to be an exciting period in the next few years as all these new varieties start coming out and we’re able to do a lot more as far as fresh-cut. The fruit category is a lot more difficult than the vegetable category was. Vegetables are fairly stable compared to fruit. With fruit, flavors change and texture changes. They break down more quickly.

"The processors have been extremely happy with these new varieties. We have had virtually zero rejections or dissatisfaction with product we’ve shipped to processors. They’ve been very happy with the quality and the packaging and the cleanliness of the product. It’s worked out extremely well for the operations we supply."

Demand Creates Growth
As fresh-cut fruit becomes more popular and consumers in general seem to be eating more cantaloupe and other fresh fruit, Steve says business at Martori Farms has been growing an average of 5 percent per year. Last year growth was about 12 percent.

The company currently raises melons on about 8,000 acres in the United States, then partners with growers who operate another 2,000 to 3,000 acres in Mexico and Central America for winter supplies.

"Certainly once you make a product easier to use, easier to consume, and more convenient, it’s going to increase sales," he concludes. "I also think what has driven per capita consumption up so dramatically with cantaloupes has been all the information about health benefits, the beta carotene, the vitamin A, the vitamin C, and the cancer-fighting properties these vitamins have. Melons are relatively high in flavor and sweetness but low in calories. Those characteristics make them very attractive to those who are health conscious."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Cantaloupe Sourcing Tips

Fresh Cut
January 2000

What are the right questions to ask when procuring cantaloupe for processing? Leo Zanoni of Asgrow Vegetable Seeds recommends making specific requests for average Brix (sweetness) and intensity of orange color (lower values are better).

When ordering melons in the winter, Brix should be at least 9 percent and 10 percent for other seasons. Fruit harvested at three-fourths slip (a measurement of maturity at harvest) are as suitable as full slip as long as the Brix reading is right. Fruit with smaller seed cavities results in higher recovery of useable product from each cut melon.

Sometimes it’s advisable to ask the grower about irrigation practices. An earlier study by Michigan State University showed fruit quality can be hurt drastically if cantaloupe plants are watered too heavily before harvest.

"There is a direct relationship between increased unbound water (wet seed cavity) and the lack of flesh firmness or crispness," Zanoni cautions. "Cantaloupe flesh that is not firm and crisp will suffer more cellular damage and decay faster."

For fresh-cut processing or even long-distance retail markets, monitoring irrigation water applications is vital for quality, shelf life and recovery, according to Meir Peretz, Asgrow vine-crop product manager and former melon grower.

Water Affects Firmness
"Firmness values for Copa de Oro and other seed hybrids can be in excess of 100 or more if growers control the amount of water being applied to the plants, particularly before harvest," Peretz explains. "As a rule of thumb, judicial use of water results in higher Brix, more intense internal color and firmer flesh."

Still confused? Zanoni suggests looking beyond hybrid names. Most growers plant several varieties in each planting slot, including Mission, Caravelle, Cristobal, ImPac and others. It’s important to work with a grower who understands how each variety performs.

"Ultimately, the producer best knows how and when to plant certain seed hybrids in each production area to achieve the highest quality," Zanoni explains. "Set your standards and then partner with innovative growers who provide you with the products that meet your specs."

For detailed information, Asgrow publishes a western shipper category management report that explains growing seasons and quality characteristics. This publication is available free of charge.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Dallas 2000: The Future is Now

Fresh Cut
January 2000

New technology and marketing issues are coming to bear on fresh-cut produce in the new millennium and the International Fresh-cut Produce Association has geared its 13th annual conference and exhibition to address them.

Slated for March 9-11 in Dallas, Texas, "Dallas 2000: The Future Is Now" will feature 11 educational workshops on a variety of topics expected to affect processors directly in coming years.

"Our annual conferences are known not only for the caliber of information that is presented but also the timeliness," says Walter Strickland, IFPA’s chairman of the board. "This year’s event offers data, trends and materials that are especially vital as we enter a new century. The conference committee designed these workshops so that attendees can develop ideas and solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing the industry."

A workshop entitled "Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP): What It Can and Cannot Do for You" will highlight the capabilities and limitations of MAP and how to determine whether it is an appropriate technology for a specific product.

Technical Workshops
In the "Fresh-cut Tomatoes: It’s Time to Ketch-up" workshop, attendees can learn about new technologies, packaging techniques and opportunities in the sliced and diced tomato business. It’s a promising area and many processors are finding success in providing customers with ready-to-use product.

Handling the press as well as concerned customers during a product quality crisis will be easier after you’ve attended "What to Do If You Have a Product Recall." You’ll learn techniques for effective communication and ways to deal with a potentially damaging crisis.

"Managing the Labor Crunch: Tools and Techniques to Retaining Good Employees" is a workshop that will demonstrate specific methods to use and retain quality employees despite the labor shortage facing the processing industry as we enter a new millennium.

Marketing Sessions
For processors who want to fine-tune their marketing techniques and strategies, the IFPA convention will offer several workshops with helpful information.

"E-Commerce: Is It the Death of Retail?" will address the impact of the Internet and other electronic advances on introducing, distributing, buying and selling new fresh-cut produce items.

At the workshop entitled "Delivering Real Value to the Foodservice Market," speakers will outline how foodservice operators evaluate value-added products and illustrate how fresh-cut processors can capture their share of this exciting growth market.

The workshop entitled "Top Ten Trends: Where’s the Competition?" will provide attendees with an analysis of key market segments perfectly positioned for fresh-cut products and suggest strategies for targeting these growing niches.

How important is flavor in the success of fresh-cut products? Attendees who are concerned about how the taste of their products affects repeat business can learn much from "Where Does Flavor Fall in the Quality Spectrum?" It is a workshop focusing on how to evaluate a product to determine if it meets the consumer’s number one purchasing demand — flavor.

Staying Ahead in Fresh-cut
"From e-commerce to modified atmosphere packaging, our slate of programming covers the entire fresh-cut spectrum," says Edith Garrett, president of IFPA. "Anyone involved in the industry or just thinking about entering the field should attend so they can capitalize on the newest techniques, trends and issues."

Chairman Walter Strickland agrees, saying, "The past year has been especially volatile for the fresh-cut industry due to outside influences such as mergers and acquisitions, a labor shortage, and an increasing focus on food safety. IFPA designed this conference to equip those in the industry or affiliated with the industry with new, vital and state-of-the-art technology to help them remain in the lead as demands for convenient, fresh food continue to increase."

Conference attendees who come to Dallas will have the option of participating in two consecutive tours to be held on Wednesday, March 8 and on Thursday, March 9. Wednesday’s tour will include visits to Standard Fruit and Vegetable’s state-of-the-art plant and 7-Eleven’s leading edge distribution center. On Thursday, the IFPA’s retail tour will take attendees to Eatzi’s, Kroger and Simon David.

Have Some Fun, Too
Another attraction in Dallas this year is the popular annual golf tournament, slated for 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 9. Participants will play at Tour 18, a course that boasts "America’s Greatest 18 Holes." The course simulates holes from some of America’s most renowned golf courses, offering players a unique and memorable golfing experience.

Finally, the conference will end with a Texas-style celebration at the Eddie Deen Ranch where attendees can relax and socialize while dining on some of the best food in the state, dancing and listening to western music, and watching armadillo races, bull riding and sharp shooters.

"This annual conference is the only event geared directly for this industry and it offers fresh-cut processors, suppliers and customers information, technology and unique networking opportunities that help initiate ideas, solutions and contacts that are vital to their success," Strickland concludes.

To register for "Dallas 2000: The Future Is Now," or for more information, contact the IFPA at 1600 Duke St., Suite 440, Alexandria, VA, 22314 or by phone at (703) 299-6282 or at www.fresh-cuts.org on the Internet.

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Technical Materials Available
In focusing directly on the fresh-cut industry, the IFPA has distinguished itself by working with the Produce Marketing Association to develop "Fresh-cut Produce Handling Guidelines," a publication that provides the latest information on proper handling procedures for fresh fruits and vegetables. The publication is targeted toward buyers of fresh-cut produce and helps answer such questions as how to determine fresh-cut needs for ordering, how to transport, store and merchandise fresh-cut products safely, how to select a reliable fresh-cut supplier, and guidelines for proper sanitation.

The IFPA has also made "Guidance for Industry — Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables" available to its members. This publication was issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the USDA to address microbial food safety hazards and good agricultural and management practices.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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Regional Processor Targets Foodservice

Fresh Cut
February 2000

CINCINNATI — The potential for fresh-cut produce in foodservice is huge. That’s why Club Chef, Inc. decided to focus solely on delivering quality fresh-cut fruits and vegetables to restaurants and other clients in the foodservice sector, according to John O’Brian, executive vice president of value-added for Castellini Company.

Club Chef has been Castellini’s fresh-cut arm since 1978 when Robert H. Castellini, chairman, acquired the processor in response to customer demand for pre-cut items. "He was visionary enough to see the paradigm shift to pre-cut in the industry and he was able to capitalize on it " O’Brian recalls. "He clearly predicted the trend toward getting produce processing out of the back rooms of restaurants".

Founded in 1896, the 102-year-old Castellini Company has a long and colorful history. Company founder Joseph J. "J.J." Castellini was a creative innovator who saw the need to add value for his customers early on and invented a celery washer to do just that.

A leader in several produce associations, Castellini served as president of the National League in 1913. He helped found the Cincinnati Fruit and Produce Credit Association and was president of the United Fruit Auction Company in Cincinnati. He also founded and served as first president of the International Apple Association. National Apple Week was created under his leadership.

Multi-faceted Company
Chairman and CEO Robert H. Castellini is grandson of the founder. He assumed leadership of the company in 1966, 14 years after the unexpected death of his father, Robert H. Castellini. Under his leadership, the company survived a devastating fire in 1967 and continued growing to become the multi-faceted company it is today.

In 1974, Castellini saw the need for a tomato and banana ripening facility and opened Grant County Foods, Inc. Four years later, he purchased a processing company that became Club Chef, Inc.

"At Club Chef right now, it’s all about focus," O’Brian explains. "We decided about 18 months ago to exit the retail arena and focus all of our resources on the foodservice sector. Since then, we’ve experienced some nice gains in productivity and quality.

"The wild volume swings that you see in the retail end can be a real distraction to a processor. Of course, foodservice is still seasonal. It’s stronger in the summer than in the winter, but we don’t see those weekly spikes and sudden peaks and valleys. The more consistent flow of product has enabled us to dial in on our processes and work on our efficiency and training."

Opportunities for fresh-cut fruits and vegetables still abound in foodservice, according to O’Brian, but he cautions there’s danger in helter-skelter growth just for the sake of becoming larger.

Controlled Growth
"We’re being very careful about what sectors within the foodservice industry we choose and the type of customers we serve," he continues. "We don’t want to do things just to say we’re a company of this size or that size. We want to be really good at what we do."

For Club Chef, focus on foodservice starts in the field where "bird dogs" give the company a "heads up on the role Mother Nature is playing" in various growing areas, according to O’Brian. These bird dogs, or field inspectors, are part of the Fresh Network organization, a produce service business partially owned by Castellini and based in Salinas, California. Castellini also owns a trucking company that hauls fresh produce to Cincinnati from California and other areas.

"Our vertical integration from the source is definitely a plus," O’Brian explains. The integration doesn’t stop there. Once Club Chef receives a load of produce, they process it and then hand it off to Castellini distribution system for customer delivery.

Today, focusing every effort on foodservice, Club Chef is working hard to do a better job for customers who are having difficulty finding enough labor to prepare produce in-house, according to O’Brian.

"We’re seeing it all over the place," he explains. "It’s all part of the same basic trend. People can’t find help to cut lettuce or dice tomatoes in the back room and, secondly, they either don’t want to take the food safety risk or they want to minimize it.

Cleaned and ready-to-use is a value-added service that is becoming widely accepted.

Reducing Risk
"I’m not saying there is huge risk in bringing whole head lettuce or cabbage into the back room straight from the field, but there’s more risk than bringing in product that has been cut in a safe environment, washed in chlorinated water, bagged, and heat sealed. You’re minimizing the number of potential risks you have out there. It’s not 100 percent foolproof, but if you can just back that risk off a little bit as a restaurant operator, that’s a big win for you."

The food safety and sanitation programs at Club Chef are designed to prevent problems from being introduced into company products rather than to detect problems after the fact by inspecting finished products, according to Bob Herdeman, director of quality assurance.

"We build quality into the products," Herdeman explains. "Food safety is our number one priority and HACCP is the cornerstone of our food safety program."

As with any HACCP program, several prerequisite programs are in place that help assure product safety, according to Herdeman. They include facility pest control and sanitation programs, the use of Good Manufacturing Practices and product recall capability.

To test the efficacy of sanitation procedures, Club Chef carries out regular microbiological analyses using periodic swab testing and daily bioluminescence tests.

A Simple Question of Safety
"One of the key things is just regular training of plant personnel," Herdeman continues. "As they do their jobs, we always remind people to think about whether or not they would eat that product. We remind them we’re serving a local market and their families may visit the restaurants we ultimately serve. HACCP can sound complicated and rigorous — and it is rigorous — but it’s still a simple question of whether they would serve these products to their families when they think how it is being handled in the plant."

Another facet of the company’s comprehensive effort to provide better products and services to customers is its continuous improvement program, according to Richard Morgan, human resources manager. Continuous improvement focuses not only on sanitation and food safety but also on every other program at the plant.

The company’s "Opportunity for Improvement" (OFI) program involves every employee by seeking suggestions for improving quality, productivity, yields and safety, Morgan says. The company implements helpful, affordable suggestions and keeps score on how they are doing.

"Food for Thought"
"Another thing we do is called ‘Food for Thought,’" Morgan adds. "Usually another supervisor and I sit down at noon with eight to 10 employees and have food for everyone. We listen more than we talk. I get it started, but then I sit back and take notes. You just can’t imagine how well that’s worked for us. The employees come up with ideas and they know what they’re talking about because they’re out there doing it every day."

To focus on a specific problem, Club Chef recently adopted Kaizen, a program used successfully by other corporations like Toyota. The company targeted its "short order" area where such products as broccoli, celery, carrots and other specialty items are processed and, in many cases, hand-packed, according to Tom Duggan, director of operations.

"The Kaizen event helped out a tremendous amount," Duggan says. "The short order area is running much better. We improved our quality and productivity. Then from that, we’ve gone to a short order line designed by Heinzen Manufacturing. We’ve had very few complaints from customers."

O’Brian says the short order area is a key part of the company’s strategy for developing new products for foodservice clients that are profitable for Club Chef.

Jeff Klare, vice-president sales and marketing says, "As a result of Club Chefs focus on the foodservice sector and the continuos improvement in quality, our business continues to grow each year. We’re a primary supplier to most of the leading restaurant chains in the country and our niche of providing a ‘one stop shop’ concept for all of our customers’ produce needs is unique to our industry.

"The potential for growth is definitely out there. It’s just unbelievable how many new opportunities continue to surface. We just want to be sure that we grow intelligently."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Fresh-cut Trends for the New Millennium

Fresh Cut
February 2000

By Dr. A. Elizabeth Sloan, president
Sloan Trends & Solutions, Inc.

On a scale of one to 10 for the healthiest food, Americans rate fresh fruit and vegetables a perfect "10" followed by whole grains, yogurt and pasta. Not surprisingly, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables continues to be consumers’ top strategy for improving their health through food (United Soybean Board, FMI, 1999). Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of consumers still say they are trying to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Another strong and somewhat parallel trend involves the steady rise in interest, purchase, and sophistication of vegetarian menu and processed food items. More than half of restaurants with an average check of $15+ and 43 percent of those below, report more frequent ordering of vegetarian dishes (NRA, 1998). Grilled veggie sandwiches were the "rising star" among all sandwiches in Restaurants & Institution’s Menu Census, while the vegetarian category grew 31 percent in traditional supermarkets and nearly 20 percent in natural food stores. With 12 million "true vegetarians," record numbers of "semi-meatless eaters" and 15 percent of college students now describing themselves as vegetarians, expect the new "vegetarian" to finally come of age as a strong and sophisticated mainstream cuisine.

As the motivating force behind the purchase of healthy foods shifts from nutrition to health maintenance and the management/treatment of specific health conditions, not surprisingly more than 50 percent of grocery shoppers regularly buy foods for their specific health benefits. With 95 percent of shoppers now believing that "certain foods have health benefits that go beyond basic nutrition and may reduce the risk of disease or other health concerns," produce heads the list (IFIC, 1998). Bananas, purchased for potassium content by 61 percent of shoppers, citrus fruits, for vitamins by 65percent, broccoli, for cancer prevention by 53 percent, and apples, for fiber content, are some common, more traditional, examples (Figure 1 - FMI/Prevention, 1999). Treating colds with orange juice now rivals the use of over-the-counter drug products. Clearly, today’s shoppers prefer naturally nutritious foods to treat or manage a condition no matter if that desire is self-imposed or recommended by a doctor (Figure 2).

More importantly today, 59 million self-care supermarket shoppers are looking for foods to help manage and treat health conditions like cholesterol, heart disease and others. Fruits and vegetables, high in health-promoting phytochemicals, provide a wide variety of health benefits, such as helping to lower cholesterol, preventing blood plaque from sticking to artery walls, etc. These wondrous foods, commonly found along the produce aisle, also promise to provide a powerhouse of mainstream marketing opportunities.

Fresh Is Still Best
At the same time, America continues to be obsessed with fresh foods. Fruits and veggies top that list too! Today, there is no stronger competitive advantage than being fresher, or being perceived to be fresher, than a competitor or another similar form of product. In fact, the freshness claim is "extremely/very" important to nearly two-thirds of supermarket shoppers and has topped the list of the most desirable food claims since 1994 (HealthFocus, 1999).

Being able to determine a product’s freshness by freshness dating has become a serious issue for both shoppers and retailers. It is now the third most important reason consumers select a primary supermarket for the majority of their shopping, just behind "high quality fruits/vegetables" and a "clean, neat store" (FMI, 1999). The vast majority also feel strongly that supermarkets should mark "sell-by" or "use-by-dates" (88percent) and "prepared on" dates (73 percent) for fresh prepared foods, meals and deli foods while three-fourths said they would buy more if the food looked fresher!

At the same time, sales of natural food products remain strong across all retail channels, topping $25.3 billion. That includes sales on the Internet (year ending June, 1999). Likewise, organic sales are expected to continue to grow at 20 percent to 24 percent per year and top $9.4 billion by 2001 (OTA, 1999). Nine out of 10 shoppers who look for natural products — compared to 41 percent of shoppers overall — consider a "grown without pesticides" label an extremely/very important reason to change brands. Not surprisingly, as concern over food safety, environmental contamination and country of origin continue to rise, marketers should begin differentiating products by the quality and timeliness of processing parameters, agricultural techniques and the quality of water fed to crops. With environmental concerns returning to levels prevalent in the late 1980s and with 60 million Generation Y kids — who learned about ecology in preschool — just graduating from high school, look for Earth-friendly and wallet-friendly values to remain strong for the longer term (Phillips, American Demographics, 7/1999).

SIMPLE, SEASONED AND SENSIBLE. . .
Americans have never had a greater interest in and a keener understanding of food than they do now. They read recipes like novels, are more interested in the "Food Channel" than soap operas, and complain bitterly when they can’t find the latest trendy product or pill. Spoiled by restaurant take-out and tastes, today’s "virtual cooks" favor flavor, fast-forward service and fun!

Americans will continue to try to simplify their lives. Frazzled by fusion and overwhelmed by product options, time pressures and chores, they will demand a simpler — seasoned — and more sensible approach to food. Watch for signature ingredients, simpler meals and samplers to proliferate. At the same time, look for consumers to demand simplicity in selecting and obtaining everyday fare. On-line shopping and couponing, "Street Food" and "round-the-clock" foodservice will be essential to meet America’s new penchant for late-night snacks, revamped dining patterns and "on-the-go" demands.

Despite the growing number of techno-optimists, concerns over food safety, environmental contamination and country of origin will make natural foods the "norm," while "Fresh" will be forced to get "fresher." And, as the basis for classic culinary training shifts from France to the Far East, watch as foreign varieties of seasonings, sauces and snacks provide snappy substitutes for everyday fare.

During the last few years, we’ve seen a redefinition of nutrition. Our struggle to look and feel good has shifted nutrition from healthy eating to problem treating. Nutrition is now perceived as a tool for disease prevention and the self-treatment of specific health conditions.

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI, 1998b) estimates the supermarket "self care" movement to be 55 million shoppers strong! One-third of shoppers is more likely to self-treat than last year. Nutraceuticals — the fastest growing segment of today’s food industry — with sales of $64 billion, are perfectly positioned to capture these shifting mainstream attitudes toward health and well being. Fresh fruits and vegetables can play an integral role in this trend.

Clearly, the shift to "very" healthy foods reinforces the innate desire of consumers to indulge. Indulgence is back, but in milder form. Today, some consumers will opt to give up a few grams of fat for taste, others will eat cheesecake today and enjoy Slim-Fast™ tomorrow, while yet another group, burned out by the "battle of the bulge" will go hog wild. It’s a marketer’s dream!

Whether for fuel or fun, one thing is certain: Consumers want easy, entertaining and enjoyable fare. With that in mind, here are ten checkpoints for fresh-cut produce manufacturers to talk and think about as the basis for building business opportunities in the next millennium:

Shift to Very Intense, but Familiar
It appears creative restaurateurs and food marketers may have gone too far, too fast by haphazardly mixing ingredients, ethnic flavorings and cuisines. Despite growing consumer affinity for spices and ethnic flavors, "plain American" is the cuisine three out of four say they enjoy most. How will you make your products more flavorful and how will you dramatize them in a familiar way for today’s "arm chair" rather than "jet set" travelers?

Burned-out and Bored
The impending shift of the technical basis for American chefs and culinarians from classical French techniques to those of the Pacific Rim will undoubtedly have the greatest impact on the American palate. What cooking techniques, flavor profiles, varieties or mixes will best appeal and showcase your products to this emerging mainstream cuisine with a "fresh," light attitude?

Super Simple
Consumers are choosing to make cooking — in any form — a low priority chore, but they still like the feel of participation, the sounds of sizzling and the practice of stirring health foods. How can you simplify your products, reduce chores and directions for greater appeal?

Free-style Eating
Mealtime is anytime and anywhere. How will you address mobile eaters’ needs at work and at play with fresh tasty alternatives? With late night getting nifty and now being the second largest 2-hour segment for snacking, how can produce manufacturers capture a new day-part? Why not add other mealtimes and day-parts too? Breakfast? Snacks? Appetizers too?

Self-treatment and Positive Eating
With the movement away from avoiding bad ingredients, seeking good, fresh produce clearly moves to the front burner. What actions have you taken — or can you take — to earn your products’ rightful share of the market for this new generation of healthy products? How can you capitalize on the phytochemical content of your products and appeal to 85 million dieters for health reasons and more.

For the answers, recommended actions and specific new product opportunities and directions, attend the Fresh-Cut Annual meeting in Dallas, March 10 and hear Dr. Sloan’s Keynote Address, "A Taste of Tomorrow: Trends & Opportunities for Fresh-Cut Produce" and her presentation on "Where’s The Competition for Fresh-Cut?"

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

New Processor Offers Fresh-cut Spuds

Fresh Cut
February 2000

CENTER, Colo. — After shipping ordinary russet potatoes since the 1930s, who would have guessed growers in this out-of-the-way community would be promoting a sophisticated fresh-cut product like "Pommes Parisienne" by the year 2000?

It certainly didn’t happen overnight. Rick Ellithorpe and other San Luis Valley potato growers have long dreamed of a processing plant where they could add value to their spuds to compensate for dwindling returns on the fresh market.

Their dream came true when their new company, Colorado Gourmet Potatoes, recently shipped its first order of fresh, whole-peeled potatoes to a foodservice customer.

"Our group has been together for six or seven years," says Ellithorpe, a fourth-generation Colorado native and one of nine investors in the new plant. "We looked at a lot of things. We talked about putting in a potato flake plant, but we felt like fresh is the trend."

In Europe, fresh-cut potatoes have been popular for a number of years, according to Ellithorpe. Plants he visited three years ago in Europe have since doubled their fresh-cut capacity and are looking at further expansion.

European Flair
"It’s a huge, huge thing in Europe," Ellithorpe says. "They’re more interested in something that is absolutely fresh. Their restaurants, their markets, their people preparing food all demand fresh.

"In my opinion, it’s a little more difficult to try to provide an absolute fresh product and get the shelf life you need. And that’s part of the reason it’s taken us so long. It’s something that hasn’t been done in the United States before except on a very small scale."

With Europe’s experience in mind, Ellithorpe and eight other investors have built a state-of-the-art fresh-cut processing plant capable of filling a semitrailer with fresh processed potatoes each day. With special processing equipment imported for the plant by American European Systems of Sparks, Nevada, the plant is versatile, efficient and up-to-date.

"We have a myriad of different products we’re capable of making," Ellithorpe reports. "Right now, we’ve started with three different products. At the moment, our primary product is a fresh, whole-peeled 3- to 5-ounce potato that can be used for mashed potatoes, fries or whatever the chef wants to make. Then we make slices. I call them scallops. When you take them out of the bag and look at all the labor and all the waste that’s been dealt with and the consistency and quality, you realize it’s a lot of advantage."

Premium Potato Balls
The company’s third new product is Colorado Gourmet Potatoes™ brand Pommes Parisienne, a specially cut 1.25-inch diameter potato ball that has become popular with European chefs.

"It’s a premium item," Ellithorpe explains. "Chefs can do a lot of different things with it. It’s like a baby red potato, but it’s clean, peeled and perfectly round. They’re all the same size."

Colorado Gourmet Potatoes are cut "fresh from the mountains," and vacuum packed in 5- and 10-pound bags with no cooking or preservatives.

"Our products are absolutely fresh," Ellithorpe asserts. "Our process and packaging have given them a 21-day shelf life. Chefs tell me there is a huge difference between cooked product and an absolutely fresh product."

One chef who is enthusiastic about the company’s Pommes Parisienne is Lane Warner, executive chef at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

"I use them a lot," Warner reports. "I come from a good school, from a good background of cooking. I learned never to sacrifice quality. No matter what it takes, never sacrifice quality. These potatoes, they’re the real McCoy. They don’t sacrifice any flavor whatsoever and they’re so user friendly and labor friendly.

Taste Is First
"That was my big key. The taste was first. I didn’t care about labor. I just cared if they tasted good, if they tasted like a potato."

Warner says one of the most important attributes of Pommes Parisienne is consistent size and quality. Asked if he uses other fresh-cut products in his kitchen, Warner also mentions gourmet peeled baby carrots with tops.

"That’s the kind of thing a chef is looking for," he reasons. "Anything to knock the labor out. If you had to sit around and peel a thousand baby carrots, they’re not all going to look the same. What I like about this potato product is consistency. They’re all the same."

Consistent size means uniform cooking time, too, according to Ellithorpe. When chefs instruct their staffs on how to prepare a recipe, they can be sure the potatoes will all come out the same if cooking times are equal.

John Mertes, executive chef at the Loews Giorgio Hotel in Denver, says uniform cooking is one of the attributes he likes about Pommes Parisienne.

"I like them a lot," Mertes reports. "The size is uniform. It’s nice. We use them for a variety of things: sometimes for banquets, sometimes just for special occasions. I’ve gotten nothing but positive response from them. These potatoes are about as close as we come to buying something prepared. Otherwise, we do everything from scratch here."

Informing Denver Chefs
Joan Brewster, president of ACF Culinarians of Colorado, the Denver-based chapter of the American Culinary Federation, says chefs in her group are just beginning to become acquainted with the new fresh-cut potato products.

"I think they’re being received very well," Brewster remarks. "Overall, I think it’s been very positive. Colorado Gourmet Potatoes is sponsoring an apprentice who is training to be a chef. He is working with John Mertes and they are using the potato products in their hotel. He is kind of a sounding board for the rest of the chefs in our organization as to how they can use those potatoes. Education is the key."

Since Colorado Gourmet has targeted foodservice establishments with their new products, they’ve even hired Hans Amstein, a respected retired chef from the Denver area, to help market them.

"The chefs like the product," Amstein says. "I personally have tried the product and I would certainly use it if I were still active.

"With today’s labor shortage, especially in places where they do a large amount of banquet business, it certainly helps to have a product like that available. It’s going to take awhile to get these products introduced, but the reaction to the flavor of these potatoes has been very favorable. I personally think they taste like freshly peeled potatoes."

Built-in Labor Savings
Labor is a significant factor for fresh-cut potatoes, according to Lou Mozer of Federal Fruit and Produce Co. in Denver. He has sold Colorado Gourmet Potatoes to several foodservice clients, including country clubs and retirement centers.

"Because of the lack of help in the kitchens, I think there’s a dire need for these products," Mozer reasons. "We’re going more and more for the fresh-pack merchandise — the carrot sticks, the celery sticks, the peppers — that has already been cut. Chefs much prefer the flavor of the fresh ones."

Flavor will prove to be a key to the success of Colorado Gourmet Potatoes, predicts Rick Ellithorpe. He says his products exceed the flavor of others on the market that are already cooked.

"We feel like they really do have a lot of flavor," he concludes. "That’s one of the results of having fresh product. That flavor is still there when they receive it. Any time you cook something, it begins to lose its flavor. Then you have the issue of labor and also waste.

"If you cut open fresh potatoes, there will always be one or two you can’t use, but when you buy five pounds of this product, all the labor’s in there and you just cook it. You get five pounds of product. And you don’t have to deal with all that garbage that was made by peeling them. Dealing with waste in downtown Denver or New York is a tough nut to crack. They don’t want you dumping that stuff down the sewer and they don’t want you filling their landfills. We take care of all those problems for the customer and they get all usable product."

Editor’s note: Visit Colorado Gourmet Potatoes’ web site at www.cogourmetpotatoes.com or call Monterey Bay Food Group at (800) 685-3663 for more information.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Adding Value to Vegetables in the Field

Fresh Cut
February 2000

SALINAS, Calif. — In 1974, Bud Antle Inc. developed a process for chopping and bagging lettuce in the field, then later abandoned it. Today, however, the concept of processing produce in the field to cut handling costs is still alive in various forms.

A 12-page brochure published by Bud Antle Inc. in 1975 features a young lady slicing a head of lettuce in the field on a cutting table. The table also holds a large salad bowl and other salad components. On the ground next to the table is a stack of Bud of California® brand salad mix. The brochure’s headline proclaims, "Now you can serve your customers a delicious salad made fresh in the field."

Inside, the brochure goes on to tout the benefits of "field freshness" and year-round supplies. On a later page, a photo and diagram depict the mobile units the company used to harvest, cut, wash and bag lettuce and salad mix in the field.

"That was the earliest field processing," according to Dave Cayton, an engineer and consultant for Backus USA, who worked for Antle in 1974 and developed the company’s in-the-field process. "It makes all kinds of sense to do it that way because you leave all the culls and waste material in the field. A big part of the cost and a big part of the headaches are associated with managing culls, core, wrapper leaves and trimmings."

Processing in the "Mother Ship"
Cayton’s process employed a special truck for harvesting and cutting lettuce and a roadside or in-field mobile processing unit, dubbed the "mother ship," where chopped lettuce was washed, dried, bagged and put into cartons.

"We put cutters on the trucks and made the bodies like a stainless steel thermos bottle for collecting cut lettuce," Cayton recalls. "The lettuce was trimmed and cored in the field and lifted by conveyor to the overhead cutter. Cut lettuce fell into this stainless steel chamber with a conveyor floor and pretty soon we’d have a load of cut lettuce.

"The mother ship was a van that was refrigerated inside and all stainless steel. It had a special centrifuge. We backed up to the van, opened the back door of the truck and turned the floor conveyor on backwards to dump the lettuce into a long unit like a bathtub. We had a stream of water flowing from one end to the other and pumped the lettuce into another trailer where it was dried and packed into bags and cartons. There was a side door to this second van where a truck could back up and receive the cases of finished product.

"We took this mother ship around with us to where there was a cluster of fields to be harvested. It had its own generator and water supply, but the point is we didn’t bring anything out of the field that we weren’t going to use."

Facing Logistical Problems
Cayton recalls the process worked well for a time, but as precut salads became more popular and volume began to increase, the company faced logistical problems with in-the-field processing.

"What killed it was if we ever had a surge," Cayton recalls. "Suppose the people at the van were packing at a certain rate and the trucks were coming in at a certain rate. As long as everything was working, it was fine. But suppose a truck had a flat tire in the field and you had a delay. We didn’t have any cold room to store things in and the crews were all on standby. Likewise, if the van had some kind of electrical failure, you had a bunch of trucks backing up and the guys in the field were waiting for one to return so they could do some more cutting. Pretty soon, it was time for them to go home and you didn’t have your orders filled."

The process was finally abandoned. Bud Antle Inc. was purchased by Dole Food Co. in 1978 and Cayton launched his own processing machinery consulting business in 1985.

Growers, packers and processors, however, have not given up on the idea of controlling production costs by processing product in the field where possible. A number of companies are cleaning and coring lettuce in the fields before shipping it in bulk bins to processing facilities.

Tanimura and Antle has reportedly taken field processing of lettuce one step further to include chopping and washing and is seeking a patent on the system. Company officials, however, do not wish to discuss their process.

What Works Today
What works for lettuce also works for romaine hearts and other specialty greens, according to John Tamagni of European Vegetable Specialties Farms, Salinas, California.

"If you consider wrapped lettuce to be value-added, we’ve been doing that for probably 20 years," Tamagni explains. "The number one item in the [Salinas] valley now is probably romaine hearts. They’re absolutely huge. It’s big business. Virtually all of the major companies are doing them, harvesting probably tens of thousands of cases a day in the summer.

"We do treviso and romaine hearts. We trim them, put them naked in boxes and we wrap them like lettuce and bag them. And we do wrapped radicchio. We band radicchio and bag it.

"We do all that in the field. Labor is so expensive here we do as much in the field as we can. We only want to have to touch the product one time. And we drop the old leaves in the field one time and they get turned back into the ground."

Tamagni says growers who trim and package vegetables in the field are most likely using some type of chlorinated bath for food safety reasons. He points out romaine hearts usually pass through a chlorinated shower to remove soil and guard against microbial contamination and cauliflower harvesting machines are also set up with chlorinated showers.

Celery and Broccoli
Tour participants saw a chlorinated wash in use last July in the field for celery during PMA’s Foodservice Conference, Tour & Expo. In a field being harvested by NewStar Fresh Foods, regular packs of celery were being cut, trimmed and packed into cartons for shipment. At a special table set up in the field, however, several workers were trimming celery and then dipping it into a chlorinated bath before putting it into poly bags and then into cartons.

Washing isn’t always part of the process when adding value to produce in the field, according to Gina Nucci, foodservice marketing manager at Mann Packing Company. For some customers who want the right price, there’s such a thing as adding too much value to a product, whether in the field or in the processing plant.

"We have field-cut Broccoli Wokly, our loose-cut florets in a box," Gina explains. "They come into the plant and they’re iced just like a commodity, whereas the processed Broccoli Wokly goes through the processing plant and gets washed and inspected. It is subject to all the HACCP regulations. It’s relevant in the price. Some people just want it cut. They don’t care if it’s been washed."

Nucci says Mann’s romaine hearts are simply cut, trimmed and packed in the field without washing, but customers need to understand that the final product is not ready to eat.

"A lot of times, consumers assume this package is ready to eat," she adds. "It’s a Catch-22. If it’s too clean, it’s no longer a commodity, but then you might get complaints if consumers expect it to be clean."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Potato Cuts Immigrate from Europe

Fresh Cut
February 2000

RENO, Nev. — "Pommes Parisienne," a specially cut round potato popular in Europe, as well as other types of fresh-cut potatoes, are being introduced in both the United States and Canada with favorable results, according to Don Bergin of American European Systems.

"If you look at Europe, you’ll see many cut potatoes in the markets, but you still see displays of bulk potatoes, too," Bergin says. "It’s quite different in Europe. You’ll see cut potatoes that have seasoning already on them ready for cooking."

Because fresh-cut potatoes have been popular in Europe for a number of years, equipment for peeling, slicing, dicing and making "chateau" cuts, as well as forming round pommes parisienne, is available from European manufacturers like Finis of Ulft, Holland, according to Bergin.

The process of cutting round potato balls is called "profiling," according to Bergin. It gives growers or processors the opportunity to add value to small potatoes that often have limited marketability. In fact, the ideal potato for profiling is about the size of a "B" red potato frequently sold bulk in supermarkets or used in restaurants. The diameter of the potato to be profiled should be about an eighth of an inch larger in diameter than the desired size of the finished product, according to Bergin.

The AES-Finis Profile Machine was originally developed in Europe to meet market demand for a high capacity shaping system capable of producing balls of consistent size from potatoes, carrots, beets and other fresh vegetables. End products were used for a variety of applications for both foodservice and retail in Europe.

Using a combination of abrasive and knife rolls, the Finis unit can turn out about 500 pounds of potato balls per hour per set of rolls. The largest unit is equipped with 5 roll sets. The end product has a smooth finish, comparable to an item that has been peeled with a knife. The abrasive roll is used as an agitator during the process. Knife rolls are responsible for converting pre-peeled/diced potatoes or carrot segments into parisienne balls.

The profile machine can produce round products with consistent diameters ranging from 19 mm to 42 mm or .75 inch to 1-5/8 inch. Other sizes are available on request. Potatoes must be diced or pre-peeled, preferably with an abrasive roller peeler, according to Bergin. He points out steam or chemically peeled potatoes are not suitable for profiling. If carrot balls are to be produced, the ideal raw product is carrot segments.

Finis also manufactures abrasive peelers, knife peelers, pommes chateau cutting machines, and packaging equipment. For small or startup pommes parisienne operations, AES offers a low-capacity unit called a Formit Pro for test marketing. It has an hourly capacity of approximately 200 pounds.

Fresh-cut potatoes are so popular in Europe that most supermarkets sell out of product nearly every day, according to Bergin. Because of the volume, retail prices are lower for finished product in Europe than typical prices in North America. Products include whole-peeled, sliced and parisienne cut potatoes. Restaurants are big users of chateau cut potatoes, Bergin says.

"It’s been said Europe is about seven years ahead of us in fresh-cut products," Bergin explains. "But it looks like the United States is catching up quickly. We frequently bring potential North American customers to Europe because all the equipment we handle is made in Europe. In addition to visiting numerous processing facilities, part of what we always do is take American processors to supermarkets in Holland and Germany where they can see what the retail situation is like. We also take them to the equivalent of a Costco so they can see what the foodservice side is like."

Bergin says European supermarkets have more finely chopped prepared lettuce-based salads than can be found in the United States. They are often packed in a sealed rigid tray for convenient use.

Pre-cooked packs of potatoes are also popular in Europe, according to Bergin. A Dutch cooperative called Agrico is the largest shipper of prepared, pre-cooked potatoes under the Cela Vita label. They can be found from Scandinavia to France, he says.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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Vertically Integrated from Seed to Table

Fresh Cut
March 2000

OXNARD, Calif. — It was a logical progression. Boskovich Farms Inc. was already one of the largest grower/packer/shippers of fresh whole produce in North America and more and more customers needed items to be cut, washed and ready-to-use.

"We started by taking some of our oldest mainline items and doing a value-added concept for them," says Joe Boskovich, CEO. "We took traditional green onions, our single largest commodity, traditionally packed 48 bunches in ice, and took it to an iceless packaged product packed four 2-pound bags to a carton."

High quality fresh-cut produce can only be achieved by starting with the best whole product available and that was no problem for members of the Boskovich family who have been mastering the art of growing for 85 years.

Boskovich Farms was founded in 1915 by Joe’s grandfather, Stephen Boskovich, a young Croatian immigrant, who starting raising vegetables on 5 acres in North Hollywood, California. His philosophy was simple: "Work hard. Work smart and do whatever it takes to get the job done right."

85 Years of Growth
Boskovich expanded his original operation to 20 acres and when his three sons, Phil, George and John, took over in the 1940s, they grew the family business to 500 acres of prime San Fernando Valley land.

Joe and his cousin, George Boskovich, chairman, and brother Phil Boskovich, Jr., president, are the third generation. They have expanded the family enterprise to include 17,000 acres in five growing regions. Headquartered in Oxnard, the company maintains farming, sales and shipping operations in Salinas, California, growing and shipping facilities in Yuma, Arizona, and growing operations in Sonora, Mexico, and Baja California.

Employing 900 full-time workers, Boskovich Farms has become known for high quality whole produce, including 30 varieties of mixed vegetables and strawberries.

A vertically integrated company, Boskovich controls every step of the growing process until produce reaches the buyer or arrives at its modern processing plant in Oxnard.

When Joe and his brothers first recognized the need to provide value-added produce items for their customers, their first step was to build a sanitary processing room in the Oxnard packinghouse to do iceless green onions as well as iceless cilantro, parsley, kale and spinach, according to Joe.

Getting into Fresh-cut
"We then bought an existing fresh-cut operation called Fresh Prep here in Oxnard," he recalls. "That got us into all of the packaged salads, broccoli and cauliflower florets, celery sticks, carrot sticks and a wide variety of other items.

"We were waiting for our opportunity. We were very nervous about starting from scratch and trying to build a customer base. Even though the fresh-cut industry has been growing, it’s always been extremely competitive. It really helped to buy an existing operation that had an established customer base."

Since purchasing Fresh Prep, Boskovich says the fresh-cut portion of the business has been growing about 65 percent a year. The company’s focus is on foodservice, but many items packed for kitchen use are also making a hit in some retail settings such as club stores and supermarket delis, Boskovich explains.

"We’ve really had great success with the club stores on several value-added items," he continues. "They are taking foodservice-size packs and retailing them. They’ll sell to independent restaurateurs. And you also see retailers buying foodservice pack quantities for their deli operations and buying our celery sticks, carrot sticks or bulk radishes and then making relish trays."

Nationwide Reach
Since purchasing Fresh Prep, Boskovich Farms has become like a versatile regional processor that actually ships nationwide, the CEO reasons.

"As opposed to some companies that do largely salad items, we’re different because we do so many different items, from salad mixes to diced and sliced onions to sliced celery, diced celery, celery sticks, sliced bell peppers, diced bell peppers and zucchini sticks. We do stir-fry mix, carrot sticks, matchstick carrots, shredded carrots, baby carrots, coin carrots, diced carrots, mushrooms, green beans, just about everything.

"We’re still small compared to the big outfits, but we’re growing. The same customer will be buying head lettuce from us and will also be buying chopped and shredded lettuce on the same order."

Being able to supply customers with whole produce as well as a wide variety of fresh-cut items is a key element in the growth Boskovich has experienced in value-added, according to Kevin Richardson, as vice president of sales and marketing. A nine-year veteran with the company, Richardson is now headquartered with the Salinas sales staff in a new 74,000-square-foot cooling and shipping facility ready to handle this summer’s crops. The new plant will also have processing capabilities.

Becoming a One-stop Shop
"Probably the biggest trend we’re seeing is this push toward transportation being tighter and tighter," Richardson explains. "One-stop shopping is a big issue for our customers. That’s probably been the best thing we’ve been able to present besides a more-than-adequate product. It’s just the fact that, ‘Hey, we can consolidate this stuff all at one place for you, all from one producer and with consistency of label, etc.’

"I think that’s a big deal. At this point on the commodity side, the top-end shippers are all producing boxes that are pretty similar. I think the way you differentiate yourself is service. That means how fast you can get a truck in and out. It means how many items you can provide and how consistent you can be with your service. That’s going to be the battle cry for the next couple of years. And, on the foodservice side, we have a lot of items that make sense, the broccoli florets, the cauliflower florets, the whole trend of iceless so the operator doesn’t have ice in the kitchen."

Currently value-added produce represents about 20 percent of Boskovich’s business, but it’s a growing segment, says Joe Boskovich.

"The commodity business for us has been relatively flat and the value-added end of it has been growing," he explains. "I would say our strong point would be our wide breadth of product line between whole goods and processed goods."

Heavy on Service
There’s even more to Boskovich Farms, however, than a wide array of high quality produce items and the ability to fill up a truck in a single stop. Service tips the scales strongly in their favor, too.

Over the years, efficiency in serving customers has been a goal and Boskovich Farms has quietly been developing proprietary in-house computer software that enables them to coordinate all their far-flung operations to almost magically get customers’ trucks on the road in record time.

"We have a great software system that has our sales, production, farming, harvesting, processing, shipping and inventory all linked together in one system," the CEO points out. "We’re very happy with it and we think it is instrumental in getting trucks in and out of here. That’s a big focus of ours — how fast we can get trucks in and out of our facility while at the same time trying to have the freshest product possible and also having 30 different items on a single truckload. Our software system plays a huge role in that."

Trucks come and go in a hurry, but customer service at Boskovich reaches well beyond the doors of the processing plant. If end users need service, Joe says the company dispatches representatives to assist them on-site.

Vendor-managed Inventory
"For our larger accounts, we have vendor-managed inventory," he continues. "It’s all done over the Internet. We actually track the customer’s warehouse inventory. For one very large foodservice operator on the East Coast, we’re actually tracking inventory and creating the orders ourselves. We’re doing this type of inventory management for a couple retailers, too. And we do a lot of work with customers in quality control and watching our product as it goes through the pipeline. We’re very interested in how it looks when it’s finally consumed."

From the company’s field audit program to its in-house sanitation and food safety activities to customer service at the user level, control is at the heart of Boskovich’s program, Joe explains.

"We feel very good about the fact that we have complete control," he reasons. "Everything from ground selection to seed selection, the whole growing process, harvesting, processing, and shipping is all under the control of our family. We do things the way we like them done—to our standards. We’re even selecting special varieties of lettuce, celery, broccoli and other items and planting them specifically for processing.

"We know where our produce is grown and how it’s grown because we’re growing it. We have nobody to blame but ourselves and we’re pretty tough on ourselves. We feel it gives us a real advantage."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Food Safety and Sanitation at Boskovich

Fresh Cut
March 2000

"The finest fresh-cut produce starts with the best raw product," reads a company brochure, but the people at Boskovich Farms Inc. also know quality product depends on proper handling with strict attention to product safety.

That’s why Boskovich hired a full-time staff member with a Ph.D. in food science in 1996. In 1998, Dr. Jennylynd James, Ph.D., became the current director of food safety/research and development. She holds a doctorate in Food Science/Biotechnology from McGill University, Canada, and has worked at various food companies managing their quality assurance programs. She has been published in such scientific journals as Journal of Applied Bacteriology, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Journal of Food Biochemistry. Her professional affiliations include membership in the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association’s Production and Quality Assurance Council and the Institute of Food Technologists where she serves as an executive committee member for the Biotechnology Division. She is chair of the food safety committee of the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California. She is also a member of the International Association of Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians and serves as expert reviewer for the journal Biotechnology Progress.

In-house Expert
As the company’s in-house food science expert, Dr. James heads up food safety and sanitation programs, conducts research on safety and quality issues, directs the quality assurance program, coordinates the recall program and oversees development and implementation of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program.

The HACCP program in place at Boskovich Farms is based on the seven principles of HACCP as set forth by the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food. As quoted from Boskovich’s Food Safety and Sanitation Brochure, they are:

Conduct a hazard analysis. This includes preparing a list of steps in the process where significant hazards occur and describing the preventive measures.
Identify the critical control points (CCP) of the process. A CCP is defined as a point, step or procedure at which control can be applied and a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable levels.
Establish critical limits for preventive measures associated with each identified critical control point.
Establish CCP monitoring requirements. Establish procedures for using the results of monitoring to adjust the process and maintain control.
Establish corrective action to be taken when monitoring indicates that there is a deviation from an established critical limit.
Establish effective record keeping procedures that document the HACCP system.
Establish procedures for verification that the HACCP system is working correctly.
Field Sanitation
The food safety and sanitation program at Boskovich also includes a field sanitation program, programs for product safety and sanitation in plant operations and processing operations, and a quality assurance program for shipping and receiving. All produce, whether packed whole or processed as value-added, is under a strict food safety and sanitation program.

In the field, employees are trained about food safety issues, including personal hygiene and sanitation. They use hairnets, gloves and foodservice aprons for in-field processing. A field sanitation unit with a sanitation crew ensures that all in-field processing equipment is clean. Chlorinated water is used during field processing for rinsing of processed vegetables. Field foremen are required to monitor and document food safety procedures, including restroom cleanliness, adequate restroom supplies, water chlorine levels, health of employees, and cleanliness of processing equipment.

Boskovich Farms also implements an integrated pest management program, using pesticides only as needed to control insects. The company’s field audit program provides field history and data in the event of a food safety issue. The audit program includes a general audit overview, ranch history, adjacent land usage, fertilizer usage, pesticide usage, water supply source, employee hygiene practices and harvest practices.

Packing Plant Operations
Once whole product is brought to the packing plant, chlorine, pH and temperature levels are continuously monitored and documented. Products are cooled to the proper temperature when they are received at the plant. Once cooled, the cold chain is maintained through shipping. All processing areas adhere to standard sanitation procedures.

All employees are routinely trained in hygiene and food safety issues. A pest control system is in effect throughout the plant.

An automatic chlorine and acid injection system is used for maintaining the cleanliness of water used for rinsing vegetables. Metal detection devices are installed on processing lines to detect possible metal contamination. Boskovich performs routine microbiological testing on all processing environments and final product, both in-house and at an external lab.

Prior to shipping, Boskovich inspects all trucks for their ability to maintain proper refrigerated temperatures and overall cleanliness and sanitation of the trailer. The company conducts in-house audits and commissions third-party audits periodically to verify product safety.

Processing Operations
The food safety and sanitation program at Boskovich Farms also includes standards for all processing operations. As in the packinghouse, employees are trained in hygiene and food safety issues. They are required to wear hairnets, gloves and foodservice coats and to wash and sanitize before coming to their workstation.

In the processing plant, the HACCP plan is frequently evaluated and updated to conform to current industry standards. The company continuously monitors and documents chlorine levels, pH levels and temperature of wash water in the plant.

When raw product arrives at the plant, staff inspects it for quality and temperature. The cold chain is maintained from receiving through shipping.

As in the packing plant, Boskovich also maintains a pest control system in the processing plant and all processing areas adhere to standard sanitation procedures. Metal detectors are also used on processed product.

Again, routine microbiological testing is part of the program in the processing plant. Testing is performed both in-house and by an outside laboratory.

Product Hold & Recall
A product hold and recall program is in place and the company now performs a mock recall every six months to test its ability to track produce in the unlikely event of a food safety concern. The field audit program mentioned above provides field history and additional data.

The product coding/trace back program used in the shipping and receiving area enables plant staff to track product to its source of origin. Outside suppliers must also provide information about growing field, lot, ranch location, ranch history and current farming procedures.

The staff at Boskovich takes pride in adhering to—and exceeding—all food safety rules and regulations as well as all appropriate standards of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Microbiology Criteria for Food.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Fresh-cut Prospects Are Sunny in Florida

Fresh Cut
March 2000

NAPLES, Fla. — Jack Roberts saw the potential for fresh-cut tomatoes and fruit in southern Florida and, when the timing was right, he hired Robert Eddy to help him launch Incredible Fresh out of his existing produce distribution facility.

In 1989, when Roberts and two other partners bought Collier County Produce, it was a $2 million whole produce distributor. Since then, the entrepreneurs have built a new facility and then added another 60 percent to that. Today, with 33,000 square feet of space, the business does $34 million annually, according to Roberts.

During those years of growth, however, Roberts had worked with another processing firm to test fresh-cut fruit items in the Miami area. The other company dropped the idea, but Roberts never lost sight of the opportunities.

"I new it was a very difficult process to produce fresh-cut fruit and tomatoes with any shelf stability," he recalls. "In 1998, when we got the opportunity to entice Eddy to come to Naples, then we made the commitment to go ahead. Then we hired Brian Hill with Brian Hill and Associates, Northbrook, Illinois to assist Eddy in line design and equipment procurement and installation. We have equipment from Urschel Laboratories, Bock Engineered Products, Inc., Heinzen Manufacturing, CVP Systems, Inc., Weigh Right Automatic Scale Company, and Koch Supplies Inc.

"The World Is Going Fresh"
"We think the world is going fresh and we have to go with it. We’re doing business as Incredible Fresh. That is our label. We were fortunate to trademark that name and are very excited about our future."

Eddy, who gained his technical expertise working for Fresh Advantage, came to Naples to manage the new processing operation that now encompasses about 6,000 square feet in two rooms. One room is for fruit and the other is for vegetables. The company currently produces such items as sliced and diced tomatoes, cut melons, topped strawberries and some exotic items like kiwifruit.

"We also do some niche items, such as whole-peeled French shallots for Christopher Ranch and soup blends for supermarkets," Eddy explains.

Both Roberts and Eddy foresee a bright future for fresh-cut produce in Florida. To become more vertically integrated, the company has become partners with C & D Fruit and Vegetable Co. in Bradenton, a grower/shipper that supplies whole produce to both supermarkets and foodservice operations. The company has also taken a partnership position in Preferred Brands Inc., a fresh-cut processor in Orlando.

"We were buying from Preferred and had a great relationship," Roberts explains. "Understanding the advantage of offering a full line of pre-cuts when making presentations, along with the advantage of processing fruit and vegetables separately, the ideal decision was to join forces. Between Incredible Fresh and Preferred Brands we can serve both segments of the industry, retail and foodservice."

"Outstanding Growth Potential"
Currently retail customers in Miami, Naples, Orlando, Tampa and other areas make up about 20 percent of the business at Incredible Fresh, according to Eddy. The rest is made up of foodservice establishments such as large hotels, resorts, schools, hospitals and theme parks, but both areas look promising for the future, he says. "I believe Florida has outstanding growth potential for pre-cut vegetables and even more so for fresh-cut fruit."

While it may be slow getting started, fresh-cut is definitely coming to Florida’s retail food industry and prospects for the near future are just the beginning, according to both Roberts and Eddy.

One major retail chain is rolling out fresh specialty peppers in clamshells in the Miami area and is expected to do the same at all of its Florida locations within the upcoming year, according to Roberts. "It’s very exciting," he adds. "It takes them out of the bulk pepper business."

Fresh-cut fruit is another area where growth is waiting in the wings, according to Eddy

"We are currently building a retail program for fresh-cut fruit for several large supermarkets," he points out. "Our product will be in those stores soon."

Roberts notes it would be the first aggressive attempt by a major supermarket chain to move the actual cutting of product completely out of the store. He predicts, however, that it’s inevitable for supermarkets to see the advantage of bringing clean, sealed packages into their stores rather than juggling the many operations involved with safe processing of fruit in the back room.

Fruit for Breakfast
In the foodservice arena, times are changing, too. Factors such as labor and space savings are helping operators realize the benefits of off-site fruit and vegetable processing.

"Several restaurant chains here have taken a new approach to increasing their sales," Eddy explains. "They have started serving breakfast. Ordinarily the up-scale restaurants here in Naples do not serve breakfast. I have been asked to supply many with fresh-cut fruit. Some use the fruit as a side dish with each meal, while others use it as a garnish.

"The breakfast program began about three months ago and the growth looks promising. We are supplying them with cut melons, golden-ripe pineapples and topped strawberries. Successful deliveries of sliced kiwifruit and cut mangoes make those items promising additions to our line. We’ve also developed a fresh-cut apple achieving 10 days or more of shelf life without oxidation and without the use of citric acid. The advantage of not using citric acid is the absence of a tart flavor. Following a year of research we feel this item would be excellent for foodservice or retail."

Careful research and development is a key factor in successful product introduction, according to Eddy. Any product offering must be backed up with excellent raw product that has been properly grown and handled up to the day of processing.

"The direction we chose prior to the launch of our new business was not to pressure ourselves by acquiring a large amount of business too quickly," Eddy reasons. "We wanted to do our homework prior to introducing these delicate items to our potential customers.

Be Sure You’re Right
"You don’t want to go out with a product and hope you’re doing everything right. Each product is unique and you need to understand its potentials as well as its limitations before introduction. Being able to predict how the product will react under any circumstances aids in training and successful product introduction."

Eddy has established an in-house laboratory and has taken training programs at Silliker Laboratories Group, Inc. in Chicago to extend his knowledge of the technical aspects of processing, food safety and quality assurance.

"We’ve invested a large amount of time educating our customers on proper storage and handling of products," he adds. "Each success adds confidence to the market on the transition to fresh-cut."

Fresh-cut tomatoes represent a learning curve of about five years, according to Eddy. Each step of the program is critical and should be viewed separately with an eye toward improvement.

"There’s a lot of excitement about sliced and diced tomatoes." He explains. "One very exclusive restaurant uses sliced romas. They want them cut lengthwise to place on pizzas. We’re finding that there is a large demand for sliced tomatoes in a variety of sizes."

Start with the Best
Quality sliced and diced tomatoes start with the best fresh tomatoes, according to Eddy. He says one tomato supplier actually provides "double-graded" tomatoes for his processing operation.

"First of all, tomatoes have to be the right color," he points out. "No one wants a tomato that has any green, however if you process a tomato that exceeds a certain color or ripeness, the shelf life will be compromised. Because of the critical issues surrounding color and raw product quality, our specs have very tight boundaries. Our tomato supplier grades our tomatoes and ships daily, six times a week."

Once tomatoes arrive, they are introduced to cold temperatures for 12 to 14 hours prior to processing. Eddy exposes them to ultraviolet light with a unit manufactured by CVP Systems, Inc., helping to reduce bacteria levels.

Initial control of bacteria helps extend tomato shelf life, but even then, if fresh-cut tomatoes are not properly packaged, problems with product longevity can result. One packaging system Eddy works with is a special thermoformed plastic tray from Maxwell Chase Technologies that has built-in depressions or wells in the bottom panel. The wells are covered with material that allows juice to pass through and contact a super-absorbent material that discourages bacterial growth.

Fighting the Juice
"Anyone in the produce processing industry understands juice from fruit or tomatoes is an excellent media for bacteria reproduction," Eddy states. "With this type of package, the juice is trapped separately in the lower part of the tray, resulting in a drier product. In the past we have successfully used their absorbent pads. This tray adds convenience and reduces labor costs by removing the step of manually placing the pad into the tray."

As for any processing operation dealing with major retail and foodservice customers, Incredible Fresh has an approved HACCP program and processes in a clean-room environment. Both Incredible Fresh and Preferred Brands are ASI and AIB regulated and have received excellent scores.

"We swab our equipment, employees’ hands, tables, drains, and floors to ensure proper sanitation has been achieved," Eddy explains. "That is very important. You cannot have high bacteria counts anywhere in the process if you expect to achieve maximum results when dealing with these sensitive products.

"We also have a refrigerated dock. Our processing room is kept at 36 to 38 degrees at all times. We deliver our product in company-owned refrigerated trucks to maintain the cold chain."

Incredible Fresh also enjoys the advantage of purchasing produce as a member of Pro*Act LLC. Jack Roberts is an executive board member and was the 13th member to join the group.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Selling Your Company's Core Vision

Fresh Cut
March 2000

Your company’s core vision — understanding what makes your products successful in consumer’s minds — is the key to successful branding, packaging, marketing and advertising, according to a market researcher who studies why — not just what — people buy.

"Often this core vision is assigned to an advertising agency to define," says Dr. Margaret J. King, director of Philadelphia-based Cultural Studies & Analysis. "But the company should really own it. Then they can go to any agency and say, ‘This is what we know is important to our customers. Show us a new and exciting way to get it across to the people who can use our product.’

"Instead, ad agencies sit around and stare at the product and say, ‘How can we make this interesting?’ They often focus on the detail that’s easy for them to illustrate but may have nothing to do with the product’s value. That’s why people remember the punch lines from clever ads, but they don’t always remember the product the ad was trying to sell."

How can a company find out what their product represents in the mind of the consumer? It all boils down to understanding what business you’re really in, according to King. You must understand clearly what need your product fills for end users.

Consumers Buy Symbols
"We had a national jewelry chain whose advertising promoted technical details of their merchandise such as carat weight and cut," King elaborates. "That seemed logical to them, because that’s how jewelers buy diamonds. They knew too much about the subject and it got in the way of seeing the need they were filling,

"Consumers aren’t buying carat weight or cut. They are buying a symbol of their relationship. We worked with their ad agency to promote the value of relationships, not carats, and sales went up 18 percent."

To further illustrate her point, King recounted an experience with a pest exterminator that hung a large tag on the couple’s front door as a signal to drivers that nobody was home.

" We came back from a long business trip. We had stopped the mail, put the lights on a timer and had friends pick up packages, but we forgot one thing: the exterminator," she recalls. "The sign had only been there for a day, but that’s not a message any city-dweller wants advertised to every passer-by.

"My husband called them and informed them they were never to leave anything like that on our door again — and they gave him an argument! Their argument was that the tag saved their man time because he could just drive by and see if we had returned. So my husband, who is an analyst here, asked them what business they thought they were in. They replied that they killed bugs.

Understanding Perceived Value
"The value of their service to us, however, does not lie in dead bugs. It lies in the peace of mind we get by never having to think about infestation. We don’t use them any more. They nullified their value in our minds. They didn’t understand what business they were in."

Another example of the role consumer perception plays in product sales can be found in the dairy industry, according to King. Milk’s share of the beverage market has been eroding to colas and other beverages since the 1970s, as the last of the baby boom generation grew into their teens.

"The market got smaller as alternatives grew," King explains. "That’s pretty simple, but the invisible part of the equation is that milk isn’t in a good position to compete in the now-crowded field of beverage choices because people don’t intuitively use milk as a beverage. Beverages are perceived as thirst quenchers. Milk is intuitively perceived as food. When the U.S. government sent humanitarian aid to Kosovo, the government spokesman named only two categories specifically, medicine and milk. Everyone intuitively understood we weren’t sending milk because the refugees were thirsty."

Got a Constituency?
Now that an echo boom is taking place, growing the U.S. population, milk’s market share has stopped eroding, but the scene is complicated by a generation of parents who don’t think of milk as the only drink to serve their children, according to King.

"So you have to rebuild a constituency for milk," she continues. "The milk mustache campaign is doing that right now. They still have a long way to go because they have to make up for years of cognitive disconnection. The other way to help rebuild the milk market is to restyle milk using cultural cues for beverages. People who tell us they never drink also tell us they drink Starbuck’s latte. And ‘latte’ is Italian for — you guessed it. If you change the context, you change the perception."

In order to uncover consumers’ perceptions about food, many marketers have resorted to focus groups, but King says researchers should be careful how they use and interpret the results they obtained by such means.

"Focus groups have gained a reputation as being unreliable because they usually aren’t used correctly," she reasons. "They were designed to be generative, not conclusive. That means they were designed to produce a random list of topics that might merit deeper research. Instead they are used as the research itself, rather than just the starting point."

Out-of-Focus Groups
Some conclusions derived from focus group research would be "laughable" if the research weren’t so costly, according to King. According to one study, King noted, the father is the primary decision-maker in choosing where families will stop to eat on the road.

"Really?" King retorts. "In real life, the market leader is McDonald’s, the place with the clown icon, the toy tie-ins and the playground. Fewer than three percent of the respondents named their kids as the decision-makers and the data generated multi-million-dollar ad campaigns aimed at adults. You may not remember them, because they were so unsuccessful."

Another example of misguided conclusions from consumer studies has to do with the number of people who say they are going out of their way to include more fresh fruits and vegetables in their diets, according to King.

"The USDA keeps good records on the amount of fresh produce sold in he United States," King reports. "Either the survey response or the USDA is way off. The fact is there are socially correct answers to every question and people in groups are conditioned to give socially correct answers. There’s also what’s called the Boy Scout response. People are socialized not to tell other people unpleasant truths.

Watch What They Do
"The fact is, you can’t ask people directly what they want, especially in new product development, because people don’t know what they want on a conscious level. On the other hand, people are very good at recognizing what they want when they see it in the appropriate context. That’s why we rely on studies of consumer behavior rather than consumer opinion. We listen to what people say, but we also watch what they do. If the two don’t match, we pay attention to what they do."

Sometimes consumer surveys can be biased simply in the way they are constructed, according to King. She says if you ask people to choose between two cartoon characters or two foods, they might choose one, but that doesn’t mean they will choose it from all the other choices in the field when making the same choices in the real world. Studying consumer demand is a complex task, King says. None of that complexity is taken into account when a single product is made the center of attention in a focus group.

If you start with a clear understanding of consumer perceptions, however, you can make them work for you in a number of ways, according to King.

"You have to start with consumers’ ideas about themselves and how they perceive fruit and vegetables, not with the industry view," she explains. "For example, why do people seem to prefer crinkly packaging over soft when buying packaged salads? It’s a tactile issue thing. We still touch, even if we no longer use our sense of smell in the supermarket. Conscious logic may tell you you’re feeling the package, not the produce, but your brain has been around longer than plastics. In reading ‘crinkly’ for ‘crispy,’ we have a template in our heads that equates the package with the freshness of the contents.

Lettuce Be Fresh
"In the case of lettuce, the crispiness is the ‘label’ that guarantees a food product like a sandwich or a salad is fresh. This ‘code’ is important because food value is tied so closely to quality of life, control, aesthetics, self-worth and identity, all class and community issues.

"So communicating the value of your product is far more than letting people see the broccoli florets or peach pieces displayed through the plastic or glass. Yes, there is a minimum quality standard the consumer will impose every time, but the bigger game is in tying packaging and advertising into these much wider issues that actually drive food-buying decisions."

Contrary to what might seem logical, branding can be very important in a crowded field of fresh-cut produce products, according to King. She says a saturated market is ripe for branding and enhancing the value of products.

"It’s actually the plethora of products that drives the consumer to find some shortcut in the choice-making process," she reasons. "The answer is brands, the consumer shorthand for value. There is no reason that more fresh-cut items can’t be branded. We are all far beyond hunger as a driver of choice in this country. The next frontier of food marketing is cultural values — how people make decisions based on the myriad images in their brain and how these images work together.

"We don’t just talk about how people buy. We research why. If you know why, you can know how people will be making decisions decades from now. Anthropologist Geert Hofstede called culture ‘the software of the mind.’ We all have that software running in our heads and it shapes how we make choices. We take it apart and look at it from the outside in. If you understand what your core value is to the consumer, then you can go ahead and make every part of your business reflect that value."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Finding Rigid Solutions for Delicate Items

Fresh Cut
March 2000

If you’re packaging fresh-cut fruit, tomatoes or other delicate products a rigid tray, bowl or pouch may provide the added protection you need to ensure that consumers have a rewarding eating experience when they open your container.

The packaging configuration you choose will depend upon the type of product in question as well as the shelf life your product will need to be in peak eating condition on the customer’s plate.

As the fresh-cut industry has grown, many companies have developed packaging solutions, including bags, clamshells, rigid trays and stand-up pouches. The membership directory of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association has a long listing of companies who have created products for fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Due to space limitations, we have interviewed only a few of the makers of rigid packaging that could be used for fresh-cut fruit, tomatoes and other delicate items.

Founded in 1958, Curwood Packaging was established in a garage in New London, Wisconsin, to make cellophane for wrapping cheese. The business grew rapidly and was purchased by the Bemis Company in 1965. Today, the vast majority of company sales — approaching $2 billion annually — are in the food industry.

Fresh-cut Opportunities
In 1991, Curwood saw an emerging market for diverse packaging solutions in the fresh-cut produce industry and set out to be a "one-stop shop" for processors who had fruit and vegetable products to package. The company has been making rigid packaging for pasta, luncheon meat and multi-compartment snack kits since the 1960s, offering a full line of rigid films in HIPS, K-Resin, PET, PVC and PP.

The company’s proprietary EZ Peel® and antifog technologies aligned well with the needs of fresh-cut processors. One of the company’s original rigid packaging solutions for fresh-cut was a carrot and dip package. The customer was having difficulty assembling the right package combination to prevent the product from drying out while still providing an easy-to-peel lid. Thanks to Curwood’s expertise with other modified atmosphere products, the company was able to take proven off-the-shelf films and merely modify the barrier properties of the package to prevent excessive moisture loss.

Curwood manufactures FreshFlex® films in both flexible and semi-rigid configurations for horizontal form/fill/seal and vertical form/fill/seal machines. Custom, pre-made multi-compartment laminated trays are offered and are typically used for higher volume fruit and vegetable applications. Finally, the company makes pre-made 3-side seal zipper, stand-up and shaped stand-up pouches to round out the one-stop shop offerings.

"Explosive Growth"
"The flexible packaging industry sees the fresh-cut market as an area of explosive growth," says John Hackinson, director of marketing for Curwood. "The market is ideal for line extensions and new product rollouts, especially in the rigid area. We envision packaging growth in fresh-cut far outpacing any other food product for the next five to 10 years."

Hackinson foresees a big push into fresh-cut fruit and the need for multi-compartment kits. The area of healthy fruits for kids remains relatively untapped, he says.

"Why not form a tray into a familiar character or shape and fill it with various fruits?" he asks. "A cartoon character or race car would jump off the shelf. Parents would love it as a healthy alternative and kids would go for the creative packaging."

Hackinson predicts the next generation of packaging will include more convenience features.

"Salad bags are screaming for consumer convenience," he adds. "Curwood has developed bags with strong seals for nationwide distribution that incorporate EZ Peel to make them easier to open. Zippered bags have not been strongly embraced by the fresh-cut industry. So, one Curwood alternative is our new line of Peel/Reseal flexible films and pre-form trays that offer a low-cost recloseability option."

Hackinson sees packaging continuing to play a key role in food safety. He says Curwood is currently developing anti-microbial films that can kill harmful bacteria in the package.

Elegant Grab-and-go
Rigid packaging for fresh-cut produce should protect the product and be convenient for the consumer and, for grab-and-go meal occasions, it should also be attractive or appealing, according to Craig Snedden, vice president of operations at WFI (formerly Winkler Forming Inc.), Santa Fe Springs, California. Snedden says consumers are constantly on the go and eating from an upscale bowl or plate helps reduce the feeling of being on the run.

WFI’s Roseware line of PET bowls for fruits and vegetables certainly fulfills the last requirement for elegance and that’s just the start. WFI not only designed the "salad bowl" concept with Tanimura & Antle for their current line of specialty salads by that name but also is capable of making any number of creative designs for customers.

All WFI’s products are made from PET plastic, the most widely recycled plastic in the world. Customers can buy WFI packaging "off the shelf" or can have them custom-made at no extra charge, thanks to the company’s capacity for automated in-house tooling and thermoforming, according to Snedden.

"We have a bank of CNC machines that carve up the aluminum to make a thermoforming tool in about an hour. These machines are like robots. If this tooling is performed manually, in some cases a similar project may take a week or more," Snedden explains. "Under most circumstances, WFI does not charge the customer for this service."

Catching the Juice
WFI also worked with Redi-Cut Foods of Chicago to develop the "Juice Catcher™" concept for fresh-cut fruit packaging that channels juices away from the product, extending the shelf life, according to Snedden. The company has also customized many different fresh-cut packaging concepts for processors such as Simply Fresh Fruit, Green Garden Packaging Company Inc., JARD Marketing, Pacific Pre-Cut Produce Co. Inc., Pacific Coast Fruit Company, Graziano Produce Company Inc., OBIM Fresh-cut Fruit Co., Handi-Pak Foods Inc. and Indianapolis Fruit Company, among others.

Snedden says his company has had "the most fun" developing new concepts for fresh-cut packaging in comparison to more conventional packaging concepts for candy, cookies and bakery items.

"Fresh-cut packaging for our company has been the largest growth area next to the baking business," Snedden notes. "The ideas are boundless and only limited by the imagination of our customers. We see a lot going into foodservice packaging, a lot going into single-serve applications. We think there is a trend toward single-serving salads or fruit cups with contract feeders, schools and airlines. As you look at the consolidation that is taking place in the airline industry, modified atmosphere packaging will be important for them in the future.

"Fresh-cut produce is where we see the biggest opportunity for growth with our products. We feel we have the capability to give every customer their own identity by designing a package that fits their image. The investment we have made in our facility truly puts us in the position to work with all of the fresh-cut fruit and vegetable processors and growers in the United States and abroad."

Variety of Materials
If you’re shopping for rigid packaging, PET is the material used most, according to Dan Curtis of Clear Pack Company, Franklin Park, Illinois, but other materials may be right for different applications. Formerly with Tenneco Packaging (now Pactiv Corporation), Curtis says there are many aspects that influence the kind of package you will need and what it will cost.

"If you have a process that’s really rough on the package, you’re probably going to have to spend a little bit more in order to make sure it’s strong enough to get through your system," he reasons. "Fresh-cut fruit particularly needs a rigid package. These products turn mushy quickly if they’re handled too much. If you have a highly aromatic product and you’re dealing with odors that you want to keep inside the package, you may need more barrier capabilities. The cost is going to range according to your needs."

Curtis says processors who want to try fresh-cut fruit or some other delicate product that requires rigid packaging can get started on a small scale without a large capital investment in terms of tray sealing equipment. He says it’s important to make sure lidding film will seal to the rigid container effectively. Most film manufacturers can provide films that will seal well to rigid trays and most large thermoforming companies also have access to films for sealing packages.

Modified Atmospheres
If you’re looking for modified atmospheres in your package to extend shelf life, it’s important to choose packaging that allows gas permeability, according to Jeanne Clark of Pactiv Corporation, Lake Forest, Illinois. Introduced at last year’s PMA show, the latest product launch at Pactiv is called "Cut-A-Bove." It is a film-sealed system that allows gases to permeate the package and create a modified atmosphere, while at the same time providing a rigid lid for safe handling and stacking.

"These new rectangular trays have lids that snap on and the trays are actually sealed with microperforated sealing film to help control the respiration rate of different produce commodities," says Clark. "The lid is designed in such a way that it elevates off that film area to allow free air flow. You can actually stack the product without having to worry about the oxygen transmission rate of your film being compromised."

When rigid trays are sealed with film, stacking them can block proper airflow and prevent the package from arriving at the correct modified atmosphere. Adding a label to the film lid can also affect the total gas permeability and alter the atmosphere in the package, Clark says. By placing a rigid lid over the sealed film, normal airflow is allowed across the lidstock and packages can be stacked without damaging the seals

Clark says Cut-A-Bove packaging is currently available in three tray sizes, one for single-serve applications, a medium size for multiple-serve uses and a large size for foodservice.

If you’re having trouble finding the right rigid packaging solutions for your fresh-cut items, there are more on the way. At least one other company we talked to is planning to develop products for the exciting fresh-cut market.

"We’re 100 percent produce," says Ken Ivey of Fruit-Pak Technologies, Evanston, Wyoming. "We offer packaging for fresh herbs, berries, baby vegetables, all the fresh fruits and vegetables. We offer everything from trays and tubs to clamshells."

Ivey says the firm offers all PET products and is working on solutions now for fresh-cut fruit that will include modified atmosphere capabilities and juice catchers or absorbent pads.

"We intend to fully participate in the fresh-cut evolution that is going on out there," he concludes. "There are a lot of challenges and opportunities."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Association Grows with the Industry

Fresh Cut
March 2000

Charles Black, Sr. wasn’t the first fresh-cut processor in the United States, but when he began packaging cole slaw in Salt Lake City in 1938 and selling it in his grandmother’s grocery store, there weren’t enough processors to form an association.

Starting out in his kitchen, Black named the business Mrs. Condie’s Salad Company after his grandmother. Like the fresh-cut industry as a whole, his fledgling processing operation witnessed remarkable growth as consumers and other users began demanding more convenient fruits and vegetables.

Today, Black’s sons, Charles, Jr., Gary and Bruce, have purchased the business from their father and renamed it Condies Foods Inc. The family operation is now a successful regional processor serving a variety of customers in the West.

Just like Condies Foods, fresh-cut produce has come a long way since 1938 and is now propelled forward by the information and services of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association. It wasn’t until the 1980s, however, that processors began to think about organizing for the good of the industry. In 1987, five fresh-cut entrepreneurs who belonged to the Salad Manufacturing Association began pressing that organization—focused mainly on "wet" salads—to meet more of the needs of fresh-cut processors. Their industry was growing rapidly, fed by a boom in fast-food establishments such as McDonalds and Burger King, yet their efforts failed to convince the existing salad group to set aside a fresh-cut pavilion in the annual trade show.

Small, Yet Determined Beginnings
Determined to press forward, the informal steering committee did a mailing and held an organizational meeting in Atlanta in January of 1988. About 40 people attended and helped form the National Association of Fresh Produce Processors (NAFPP).

From those small beginnings, the organization has grown, changed its name to reflect worldwide membership and now sports more than 520 member companies. Today, the International Fresh-cut Produce Association is representing the industry on a variety of fronts, offering members numerous services to help them grow their businesses.

The staff consists of a full-time president and four support staff to help achieve the group’s goals to provide technical support, educational events and training, industry advocacy and networking opportunities to help member companies realize their full potential in the exciting fresh-cut arena. Edith Garrett is president. She is assisted by Sherry Greenwood, director of communications/editor, Carolyn Jackson, administrative assistant, Reta Jones, director of administration, and Terrie Moses, manager of meetings and programs.

A checklist of IFPA’s accomplishments in 1999 includes a wide variety of items, all intended to support member companies in their ongoing efforts to carry on the business of fresh-cut and see a strong return on the bottom line.

Technical Support
More than 1,000 callers rang up the IFPA last year with questions about the intricacies of processing fresh fruits and vegetables safely and profitably. The association proudly provides immediate, one-on-one guidance to callers, following up with relevant technical publications or directing callers to a source of expert assistance.

Located at www.fresh-cuts.org, the IFPA’s web site is also a source of technical assistance for members. The members-only technical resources section of the site was created in 1999, providing quick access to information on types of produce for fresh-cut processing, articles on the latest microbial issues, a list of food safety consultants and answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the industry. The section features a searchable database divided into four main sections: books and articles; experts and agencies; frequently asked questions; and produce commodities.

When rendering technical assistance to members, the IFPA can also respond with several excellent publications. Working with the Produce Marketing Association, IFPA has revised Fresh-cut Produce Handling Guidelines, the third edition of the popular publication intended for customers to use as a training resource in maintaining safety and quality of fresh-cut products.

In addition, the association has recently updated its model Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan, providing a sample HACCP outline for processors as a starting point for their own food safety program.

And IFPA also publishes its annual Membership Directory and Buyer’s Guide, providing members with ready access to more than 500 leaders in the industry. Finally, the association regularly informs members by sending its award-winning newsletter, the Cutting Edge, to members three times a year. As a supplement, the IFPA staff sends out its bimonthly Hotsheet newsletter keep members updated on "breaking news" that could affect their businesses.

Educational Events
Last year the association continued its tradition of holding educational events for members with the 12th annual conference, "Tampa ’99: A Bridge to the New Millennium." Attended by more than 1,100 buyers and 115 sellers, the trade show featured the latest technology, supplies and services available to processors, distributors and marketers. The conference boasted workshops led by industry, customer and government leaders that focused on such key issues as irradiation, employee motivation and the importance of Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Agricultural Practices.

The IFPA’s seven annual technical seminars have been educational hits with members as well. The session held in 1999 was no exception. Processors from all over the nation sent representatives to "Global Food Safety: Crossing New Boundaries" to hear updates on regulations and new initiatives as well as problems customers are facing and future industry trends.

Finally, in cooperation with the University of Georgia, the IFPA sponsored two HACCP training workshops in Atlanta last year to help members keep pace with the changing world of food safety.

Advocacy
The IFPA also carried out a full slate of activities in 1999, not only as an industry advocate in Washington, D.C. and the regulatory arena but also as a source of information and education for the media and other industry entities.

The association established a public policy committee in 1999 to help prepare legislators and regulators with first-hand scientific information and experience and enable them to make well-informed decisions on all issues affecting the industry. When Senator Tom Harkin, (D-IA) introduced The Fruit and Vegetable Safety Act (S.823), calling for a national program to ensure the produce processing industry has effective safeguards in place, the IFPA went into action. Association representatives met with Harkin’s staff to explain that the industry is regulated under food manufacturing laws established by the FDA. They stressed the need to redirect the focus of food safety efforts toward the source of food-borne pathogens.

In the regulatory arena last year, IFPA was active in meetings and coalitions that focused on issues relevant to fresh-cut processing, including food irradiation, biotechnology and Codex Alimentarius.

On the subject of food irradiation, IFPA was part of a coalition that submitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration asking for changes to be made to the FDA’s regulation for irradiation of ready-to-eat foods. The coalition recommends extending the maximum dose of 4.5 kGy from meat to all refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods. Fresh-cut produce, currently approved for 1 kGy, would be included in the change.

IFPA also monitored last year’s FDA-sponsored hearings on biotechnology and was actively involved in the CODEX Committee on Food Hygiene, currently in the process of reviewing the draft code of the Hygienic Practice for Pre-Cut Raw Vegetable Products Ready for Human Consumption.

Spreading the Word
Continuing its efforts to build a positive image for fresh-cut in the public eye, IFPA wrote columns and articles and delivered press releases to consumer and trade publications during 1999. Visiting with the press to promote fresh-cut products also helped establish the association as an expert source of information for future articles.

In more than 16 presentations last year, the IFPA also continued its efforts to educate the food industry about fresh-cut. IFPA staff spoke to such groups as the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the National Restaurant Association Quality Assurance Group, The Packer, the UC-Davis Fresh-cut Workshop and the Texas Produce Association.

Providing networking opportunities for members is also one of IFPA’s principal goals. During 1999, the association helped fulfill that aim by sponsoring not only the annual conference, technical seminar and HACCP workshops but also by hosting round tables in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Monterey, California. These educational sessions provided attendees the opportunity to tour local processing facilities and to discuss operational issues and techniques, helping members to develop ideas and solutions to apply to their daily operations.

In summary, IFPA’s accomplishments in 1999 helped the association fulfill its mission to advance "the industry by supporting its members with technical information, representation and knowledge to provide convenient, safe and wholesome food."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Firm Targets Bombay with Fresh-cuts

Fresh Cut
March 2000

Bombay, India has a population of 10 million people and Euro Pruits Pty. Ltd/ is targeting approximately one-tenth of one percent of them by providing fresh-cut vegetable to foodservice operators and retailers from a modern processing facility.

Founded in 1993, Euro Fruits is a family operation that got its start as a table grape packing and exporting operation after economic liberalization initiatives in India helped create a variety of new business opportunities in the country. Visionaries like Nitin Agrawal and his family identified software, pharmaceuticals and agribusiness as areas with business potential.

In the early ‘90s, Agrawal, director of marketing at Euro Fruits, obtained financial assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. With that seed money, the company set up India’s largest facility for managing the postharvest quality of fresh table grapes. Located in Nasik, the grape capital of India, the facility includes pre-cooling storage rooms, a temperature-controlled packinghouse, a fleet of refrigerated vans, an in-house quality management laboratory and a staff of highly trained and motivated workers.

Grapes to Marks & Spencer
In the first year of operation, Euro Fruits landed giant United Kingdom food retailer Marks & Spencer as a customer, putting its quality standards to the ultimate test. The operation passed with flying colors, according to Agrawal.

"The postharvest infrastructure of the company has been acknowledged as world class by visiting experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USAID, European supermarket buyers, the Natural Resources Institute of the UK and trade delegations from India and abroad," reports Nitin Agrawal. "The government of India honored the project with repeated awards, trophies and citations over the past five years."

Since its inception, Euro Fruits has become India’s largest vertically integrated exporter of table grapes, according to Agrawal. In addition to 250 acres of its own corporate farming operation, the company works with more than 1,000 progressive contract farmers in the region. Today, Gopal Agrawal serves as managing director, Sunil Agrawal is director of logistics and Bharat Thosar is chartered accountant.

After Euro Fruits established its thriving table grape business, the management team recognized an opportunity to provide fresh-cut vegetables to a growing segment of India’s 900 million people, specifically an emerging middle class consisting of dual-income urban families with busy lifestyles and high disposable incomes.

Good Strategic Fit
"The venture has a great strategic fit with our expertise in fresh produce postharvest management," Nitin Agrawal explains. "We have also nurtured relationships with farmers over the past several years. And major problems such as under-utilization of capacity, reliance on a single product and dependence on overseas markets have plagued us for several years. In the fresh-cut business, we saw an opportunity to capitalize on our strengths and minimize our weaknesses."

The company envisioned catering to the needs of busy urban families and meeting their demand for healthy, safe food.

"With more than 60 percent of India’s population being strictly vegetarian in diet habits due to religious reasons, there is a significant opportunity in the fresh-cut produce business in India," Nitin Agrawal reasons. "The present Indian produce markets are highly fragmented and the large chain of middlemen — accounting for the bulk of the cost to the consumer of fresh produce — adds a lot of cost to the products."

In order to bring added value to consumers, Euro Fruits sources vegetables directly from the farm, processes them and sells directly to grocers. In addition to cutting out costly middlemen, direct delivery also results in better quality for consumers, according to Agrawal.

Cost-conscious Consumers
"Meticulous study of Indian fresh produce realities reveals that bulk buyers of fresh produce place too much emphasis on cost, often at the expense of quality," he continues. "The average Indian household, however, is extremely cost-conscious and seeks value in produce purchases."

Cutting, washing and packaging produce puts Euro Fruits at a price disadvantage, but the company has entered the business with a long-term vision, according to Agrawal. He says the cold chain is virtually nonexistent in India and a new player like Euro Fruits must invest substantial resources in building an infrastructure. Another essential ingredient in the ultimate success of fresh-cuts will be consumer education, he adds.

Middle class households in Bombay, however, account for a large pool of consumers willing to change over to fresh-cut in spite of the slight premium they must pay to buy it.

"India is presently undergoing a retail revolution and global retailers are eyeing the Indian market," Agrawal reports. "Food products rank high on the list for setting up retail outlets. Euro Fruits’ fresh-cut business module has been born out of the revolution sweeping the country’s metropolitan areas."

Expert Assistance
Agrawal attended the 1999 convention of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association in Tampa last April on a fact-finding mission and sought assistance from industry experts to help get the company’s processing facility up and running.

Euro Fruits’ strategy includes a modern processing facility as well as vertical integration from farm to table, he says. Mechanized farm equipment, breathable packaging films and even refrigerated display cabinets at the markets are all part of the company’s strategy for supplying fresh-cuts to the Indian populace.

The company has a HACCP program in place and has set high food safety standards for fresh-cut produce. Both hygiene and convenience are goals to help the new products appeal to Indian consumers. The company buys vegetables directly from the farm and rushes them to the processing facility where they are carefully trimmed, cut, washed in chilled water baths, spun dry and packaged using no chemicals or preservatives. The process includes three distinct inspections according to Agrawal. Refrigerated trucks help insure that the cold chain remains intact until fresh-cut products reach consumers.

To help convince foodservice operations of the advantages of using fresh-cut in their kitchens, the company has produced a full-color brochure that enumerates the advantages of ready-to-use produce. The selling points include the fact that fresh-cut is 100 percent usable product and requires less storage space in the back room. Labor savings as well as reductions in disposal costs are also part of the sales pitch.

The company’s product line includes shredded carrots and cabbage, diced green peppers, tomatoes and onions, sliced carrots and green peppers, a vegetable medley and cauliflower florets.

"Euro Fruits is currently seeking to address the most critical aspect of the fresh produce business: creation of an organizational knowledge base for produce logistics management," Agrawal explains. "Our corporate slogan is the ‘Three C’ model: Keep it Clean, keep it Cold, and keep it Covered.

"The company is presently in the concept awareness development mode and is accessing both foodservice (upscale hotel chains) and retail outlets to determine customer acceptance. We’re learning individual produce item management practices and related technical issues for delivering the new farm-fresh experience to Indian consumers."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Food-borne Viruses: A HACCP Concern?

Fresh Cut
March 2000

By Philip G. Blagoyevich, Blagoyevich Consulting Services, The HACCP Institute, San Ramon, CA

Food-borne illnesses, according to the most recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 1999, account for an estimated 14 million illnesses each year in the United States. Of these, 30 percent are caused by bacteria, 3 percent by parasites, and 67 percent by viruses.
The etiologic organisms in viral infections originate from human intestines and require a human host in order to multiply. They remain infective outside the host for long periods of time, even under adverse conditions (low pH, desiccation, etc.). Although they may be present in foods, they do not multiply there.

Viruses responsible for food-borne illnesses can enter the body through the mouth via contaminated water, food, or even person-to-person contact. Once inside the body, they cause mainly two types of human infections, either adhering to the intestinal tract (viral gastroenteritis) or to the liver (viral hepatitis). Symptoms include diarrhea, fever, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Because severe dehydration may result, symptoms can be life threatening in the very young, very old, and immunocompromised individuals. In persons with healthy immune systems, both types of infections are self-limiting, resulting in full recovery.

Viral Gastroenteritis
Gastroenteritis is defined as "an inflammation of the lining of the stomach and intestine (usually the small intestine) resulting in diarrhea and vomiting." When caused by food-borne viruses, symptoms manifest themselves one to two days following infection (the incubation period) and may last one to 10 days, depending on the virus.

Although mistakenly called the "stomach flu," viral gastroenteritis is not caused by the influenza virus (the "flu" virus) but rather by a variety of viruses, including adenovirus, astrovirus, calicivirus, Norwalk virus, Norwalk-like viruses, and rotavirus. The Norwalk-like viruses and rotavirus represent the predominant causative agents of viral gastroenteritis, accounting for over 9 million illnesses each year.

Predominately infecting children, rotavirus is rarely food-borne. It is particularly virulent and widespread globally, killing an estimated 600,000 children annually due to infection via sewage polluted waters. The CDC currently estimates "55,000 children in the United States each year are hospitalized due to rotavirus infections." Most of these cases have unknown sources; however, 500 cases are directly attributable to food-borne transmission.

There are typically no vaccines or medications currently available that prevent viral gastroenteritis. One exception occurred in August 1998, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved and licensed a rotavirus vaccine for general use in the United States; however, this particular live virus vaccine, although it had been used worldwide, was withdrawn from the U.S. market by its manufacturer in October 1999 due to reported bowel blockage complications in patients who had received the vaccine.

Viral Hepatitis
Hepatitis is defined as an "inflammation of the liver." Whereas hepatitis B, C, D, and G are principally transmitted by blood and body fluids, both hepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis E virus (HEV) are potential food-borne pathogens. While there have been no reported outbreaks of HEV in the United States, it has been estimated that 4,000 cases of HAV can be attributed to food-borne transmission each year.

This virus is usually associated with molluscan shellfish (oysters, mussels, etc.) harvested near sewage outlets or sewage spills; and can also be transmitted by infected food handlers with poor personal hygiene practices. (It has been found to remain infective on food contact surfaces for long periods of time.) Upon infection, the virus is taken into the liver, where it multiplies and is excreted into the bile and bowel. The symptoms are flu-like, with associated fatigue, nausea, vomiting, jaundice, and pain in the liver area. Full symptoms can be debilitating and last four to six weeks. The usual prognosis is complete recovery in two months. Due to its lengthy incubation period of 15 to 20 days, it is often difficult to trace the origin of the infection. It is estimated that approximately 50 percent of HAV outbreaks have an undetermined source, which may indicate actual food-borne transmission cases are higher than is reported.

As with viral gastroenteritis, there is no specific treatment for viral hepatitis. While there is no vaccine for the prevention of viral gastroenteritis, there is a vaccine currently available for the prevention of HAV infection.

Conclusion
It is important to address food-borne viruses in a HACCP plan’s Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment sections. For both types of food-borne virus infections, the best prevention measures involve implementing Good Agricultural Practices (GAP’s) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s) with particular attention to personal hygiene, Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP’s), and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). Furthermore, as stated in the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, "fruits and vegetables to be eaten raw should not be fertilized with sewage or irrigated with contaminated water." The key to preventing the spread of food-borne viruses is proper identification of hazards combined with risk assessment.

Editor’s note: Philip Blagoyevich, a microbiologist and food safety expert, is the principle of Blagoyevich Consulting Services and founding member of The HACCP Institute. He can be reached at (925) 820-3558. E-mail: blagoyevich@msn.com.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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Fresh-cut Pineapple: Aiming for the Top

Fresh Cut
April 2000

CONCORD, Calif. — Ken Snyder and his team at Maui Pineapple Company, Ltd. think fresh-cut pineapple has been an underachiever at retail.

They should know. Since Maui Pineapple was founded in 1909 by descendants of missionaries who came to Hawaii in the mid-1800s, the company has become the world’s largest canner of private-label pineapple. Nearly every major wholesaler or retailer who carries branded product buys it from this venerable Hawaiian processor.

"As we saw the development in the fresh-cut category, we felt very strongly it was underperforming because product execution and promotional support wasn’t there," Snyder reasons. "We began to do both market and technical research to determine if we could bring a better product to market."

A major landowner in Hawaii, the parent company, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc., manages holdings of 28,000 acres. Some 9,500 acres are used to grow pineapple for both fresh and canned products produced by the pineapple division. The company also has a resort division and a commercial and property business segment for handling properties and investments aimed at Maui’s thriving tourist trade.

From Canned to Fresh
For nearly 80 years, Maui Pineapple was primarily a canning operation, but about 15 years ago company officials recognized a growing opportunity to market fresh pineapple on the mainland and initiated a "Jet Fresh" program to fly fresh whole pineapples to U.S. buyers, mostly for retail. The company now commands about 12 percent of that market and is waiting for a runway expansion at the Kahului Airport to allow its program to continue to grow.

In 1995, as value-added fruits and vegetables continued their explosive growth, Maui Pineapple started a processing operation to supply Hawaii’s school lunch program with fresh-cut pineapple.

"We started providing fresh-cut pineapple to buyers on the mainland about a year and a half ago," Snyder recalls. "We knew consumers wanted convenience. We hired a Ph.D. research scientist to help us on the technical end and we did market research, such as focus groups, to find out not only what consumers wanted as far as product but also what they wanted as far as packaging."

The company’s research resulted in a patented process for cutting fresh pineapple and packaging it in its own juice for consistent quality and flavor, according to Maurice Goldman, regional sales manager. Finished packages have two tamper-evident seals, one on the exterior and one inside the lid, he notes.

Packages for Consumers
"We’re very consumer-aware as far as trends," Goldman explains. "Our packaging is reusable. It has a seal so it can be closed. Consumers wanted that and the tamper-evident seal, as well."

Consumer focus groups provided feedback to help the company determine the kind of fresh-cut pineapple products it currently offers, too, according to Goldman.

"We asked them what they were looking for and a lot of their ideas helped develop our products," he points out. "Currently we are marketing three items: a whole cylinder, a wedge product and a tropical fruit salsa. We’re primarily targeting retail and we have plans to extend our line with a pineapple snack pack and a tropical fruit salad."

Vertical integration from field to table is a cornerstone of Maui Pineapple’s marketing plan, according to Mary Pryor, director of marketing. All products, including Maui sweet onions and papayas used in their fresh fruit salsa, are grown and processed locally.

"One of our main objectives is to bring the taste and romance of Hawaii home with the consumer," she reports. "We’re using very bright, graphics with tropical colors to create eye-catching appeal and help make our products an impulse item. We want to create an authentic tropical feel with our packaging.

Convenience in Demand
"Our research has shown consumers would purchase more pineapple if it were in a more convenient form. That was a main factor, too. We wanted to provide our products in an easy-to-use form. Our salsa is designed as a home meal replacement item and has menu ideas and quick snack ideas on the package. We’re also offering easy pineapple recipes to consumers to encourage them to use our products. "

Snyder adds consumers not only indicated they want convenient pineapple products but also chose pineapple as the one fruit they were most interested in having in a more convenient form.

"There’s probably no other fruit that’s harder to deal with," he points out. "You’ve got the crown, the shell and the core. By the time you finish cutting it up, the pile of fruit you’re going to eat is about the same size as the pile of stuff you’re going to put in the garbage."

The Hawaiian name has a lot of meaning to consumers, especially in the western states, according to Snyder. He says having "Maui" in the company name is a cue to consumers that their products are of excellent quality. Vertical integration helps them back up their image by actually delivering what consumers expect.

In the past, some companies may have used overripe or second quality fruit for processing, but for Maui Pineapple, the exact opposite is true, according to Snyder. The company uses only the very best fruit for fresh-cut processing.

Dedicated Processing Room
"This is one of the key advantages we have," he elaborates. "We have built within our production facility a dedicated, chilled fresh-cut room that is totally enclosed. As fresh pineapple comes in from harvest, we have the option of sending it to the cannery or to the fresh-cut room.

"The selection is made based upon quality. The best product is diverted into the fresh-cut room where it is then processed with our patented process. There is no economic pressure for us to use fruit that is not the very best because we have other things we can do with it. We can make foodservice canned chunks or tidbits or we can make juice out of it if isn’t high quality enough for fresh-cut. We can also put it into choice retail packs. There are many things we can do with it. We’re not forced to put it into our fresh-cut room."

Goldman agrees, "There are so many advantages to being in control of the product the whole way. When you’re not vertically integrated or you’re a regional processor, you receive a load of pineapple and you have no choice but to cut it and put it into containers. The only other choice is to throw it away."

Links in the Cold Chain
Company product is processed and packaged within four hours of harvest and the cold chain begins immediately. Snyder says the company ships by refrigerated vessel, then delivers in refrigerated trucks to be sure proper temperatures are maintained until product is sold.

Feedback from retail customers is excellent, according to both Snyder and Goldman. Same-store sales are steadily increasing and sampling programs glean excellent response from consumers.

"Traditionally when you do a focus group with a product, you don’t let members of the focus group take it home," Snyder recounts. "At our focus groups we would literally have to fight with the people not to take some of the product home. That highlights how good our product is."

Snyder, Goldman and Pryor are betting the high quality of their products, coupled with aggressive marketing will help their sweet products realize their full sales potential. They’re instructing retailers about handling fresh-cut pineapple correctly and supporting the products with demonstrations, advertising support, coupons and plenty of colorful graphics at the point of sale.

"We see canned pineapple being a cornerstone of our company, but we also know for us to be healthy as a company we need to expand into the value-added category as rapidly as we can," Snyder explains. "We’re coming in with a complete marketing program. From what we have seen, it’s never been done that way before with a total program from the field all he way through to marketing. Grocers appreciate the support."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Eating Out of Both Sides of Our Mouths:
Deconstructing the Mythology of Healthy Eating

By Margaret J. King, Ph.D.
Cultural Studies & Analysis

Fresh Cut
April 2000

If there is a consistent theme in survey after survey on what motivates consumers in their food choice, it is healthy eating. While Food Marketing Institute surveys show 90 percent of consumers rate taste above all, three-fourths of those also rate nutrition as an important factor, even above price.

In other surveys, similar numbers of respondents claim they always look at nutritional labels before purchasing a new product. As reported at the recent IFPA annual conference, 71 percent of consumers say they are trying to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables; 15 percent of college students now describe themselves as vegetarian; and 50 percent of supermarket shoppers declare they regularly buy specific items for health benefits.

A cursory glance at USDA consumption figures would seem to bear this out. The U.S. per capita food supply changed markedly between 1970 and 1996. In 1996, Americans consumed an average of 77 pounds more commercially grown vegetables than in 1970, 63 pounds more grain products, 54 pounds more fruits, 32 pounds more poultry, and 10 gallons less whole milk.

With those figures to draw on, it’s little wonder marketing gurus are encouraging producers to bet the farm on the new American "trend" towards healthy eating.

The Rest of the Story?
As the old saying goes, however, "It isn’t what you don’t know that hurts you, it’s what you know that ain’t so." Before you base your marketing plan on consumers’ health-conscious responses to surveys, consider this incontrovertible fact: Fully one-third of all Americans are obese, up from one-quarter in the 1980s. Even more alarming, one-fifth of all children are obese, meaning fat is more than 25 percent of their body weight in males and 30 percent in females.

Annual deaths from obesity-related diseases are calculated at 300,000. By comparison, the highest figure cited for tobacco-related deaths is 400,000. Furthermore, the number of Americans who are obese has grown 10 percent since the 1980s, precisely the same period during which pollsters report a significant and growing trend toward healthy eating!

Nearly three-fourths of survey respondents claim they try to eat a healthy diet. According to the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, however, the number of Americans who actually consume a diet low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables is between 1 percent and 2 percent!

But what about USDA figures indicating increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, you ask? The per-capita consumption of processed fruits and vegetables outpaces those for fresh produce, at 24 percent versus 21 percent. French fries, potato chips, shoestrings and other processed produce eaten in fast food venues accounts for a significant portion of total estimated fruit and vegetable consumption. Toss in lettuce and tomatoes, two other staples of the fast-food industry, and the figures supporting healthy choices decline even further.

Surveys concentrate on consumer selections made in food stores, but the real behind-the-scenes driver of fresh-cut’s share of increased fruit and vegetable consumption is the foodservice industry.

Want Cheese on That?
That reflects another significant fact: Where we eat has changed in the past quarter-century. Even if people are trying to buy healthy foods at the supermarket, they aren’t going as often or buying as much. In 1972, Americans purchased 61.6 percent of their food from food stores, and only 38.4 percent from foodservice establishments. By 1996, foodservice had captured over half the market at 51.9 percent, with food stores trailing at 48.1 percent. In other words, today we eat more than half our meals away from home.

Don’t think 51.9 percent represents fine dining, either. According to the USDA, Americans’ consumption of added fats and oils has begun to decline, but still remains near record-high levels—up one-fourth from 1970. While modest declines were recorded in most categories, the only per-capita consumption increases were for lard and edible beef tallow, up 21 percent. But supermarket sales of lard account for only 6 percent of the total. Lard and edible beef tallow are used mainly for baking and frying in the commercially prepared food and foodservice sectors. While fat-conscious consumers cut their beverage milk consumption by 22 percent in the past 30 years, all those McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, and Taco Bells made for a corresponding rise in cheese consumption of a mind-boggling 143 percent.

How do we resolve this seeming dichotomy between how people claim they make food choices and the documented choices they are actually making? The first step is to understand how the human choice-making system for food actually works, which means stepping back from measurement by individual categories and looking at the entire food universe. Once you understand the consistent patterns of how people actually perceive and use food, you can then narrow the focus to using these patterns to promote specific food products.

Beyond Hunger
Eating habits are the hardest to change, particularly in America, where they are driven not by hunger, but by a combination of biological, psychological, and cultural factors. Consumer surveys, one-on-one interviews, and focus groups are notoriously unreliable in this area—not because people lie to the interviewer, but because we’re asking them consciously to explain decisions made at a deeply unconscious level.

There is a major disconnect between the way "diet science" says we should eat and the way our lower brain tells us to eat. All too often, food preferences are emotional, rather than conscious, logical choices. We aren’t driven to choose food to fulfill USDA requirements or to feel healthier in 20 or 30 years. Instead we eat to be sociable, to relieve stress, to alter our emotional state, and to validate our feelings—such as rewarding ourselves. That’s why the phrase "You deserve a break today" resonated so convincingly it sold literally billions of fat-heavy burgers.

Fat is our reward of choice, even though "cutting back on fat" is first on everyone’s list of criteria for healthy food choices. The problem is the brain craves fat, and for a good reason. Fat is a vital nutrient. Human life is impossible without its vitamins and essential fatty acids. We crave its texture and while, in itself, fat is flavorless, it intensifies and prolongs other flavors. This is why, although half to three-quarters of survey respondents say reduced fat products taste as good as or better than whole-fat, the number of consumers who buy them consistently is far smaller. That’s why salad vegetables, cited by consumers as a health-driven choice, end up getting the high-fat treatment. According to the USDA, the average woman aged 19 to 50 gets more fat from salad dressing than from any other food.

Cultural Codes
Healthy eating surveys actually reflect the signs, symbols, and code words today’s consumers use as shortcuts to food selection. In the past, some of those words would have been "hearty" (meat and potatoes) "wholesome" (milk and eggs), or "enriched" (flour products). Wonder Bread sold itself as "building strong bodies 12 ways" long before the current crop of food health trends were ever born. It is an indication of how far the industry has come in supplying the world with safe and reliable food sources, that the code word well into the first few decades of the 20th century was "sanitary."

The good news for the fresh-cut industry is fruit and vegetables have always been on the list. "Did you eat all your vegetables?" has been Mom’s mantra as a condition of dessert for all living memory.

The bad news is the current crop of signs and symbols consumers cite as benefits—nutritional guidelines, "natural," calcium or vitamin-enriched, "organic," and even "pesticide-free"—have been around so long they have actually become consumer assumptions in many cases. Making these claims won’t win you new customers, but the failure to include these cues will definitely take you out of contention. In order to stay competitive you have to sell current benefits as well as meet assumptions.

Every consumer generation—10 to 15 years—raises the bar on how benefits are perceived. New code words and symbols are evolving even as the industry plays catch-up with the last generation. Nutrition and health have always been desired and are assumed if the correct code words, signs, and symbols are in place.

The benefits of food selection, however, go far beyond health. Food choices are a whole-brain experience. If you understand the cultural benefits of food you can develop new products that fit the mental "footprint" of food value. Remember, food choices are emotionally driven. "Healthy" is an assumption that should ideally be combined with other culturally-cued values, some of which are listed below. If you understand the pattern of how people actually use food, the opportunity for growth is unlimited.

Food Values Americans are Culturally Predisposed to Choose

Fast (fresh cut fruits and vegetables, McDonald’s, prepared foods )
Mobile (both social mobility – fine dining--and physical mobility: think auto cup holders)
Bonding (group-sharing, romance – human beings are social primates – eating together is a psychological imperative)
Experiential (playability,interactivity, food experiences that bring children and hold them at the dining table)
Reassuring (nurturing, comfort, nostalgia – "comfort foods"that fill emotional needs)
Exotic/New (imported, ethnic, new categories – iceberg lettuce is down, arugula up)

Aspirational (Class and Interest markers – reflections of the idealized self, e.g., gourmet, natural, sports. Those 15 percent of college students who desribe themselves as "vegetarian" come under this category.)

Editor’s note: Margaret J. King is director of Cultural Studies & Analysis, a marketing research and analysis firm headquartered in Philadelphia. She can be reached at (215) 592-8544.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Nutritional Research Update

Fresh Cut
April 2000

Antioxidants: Natural Is Better
Fresh fruits and vegetables may provide more antioxidant protection than natural food supplements claiming to be potent antioxidants, according to USDA researchers who measured the ability of 46 commercial preparations. The researchers found total antioxidant capacity of 40 berry-based supplements, including bilberry, cranberry, chokeberry and elderberry extracts, ranged from 16 to 3985 ORAC units, a 249-fold difference. Six other antioxidant products ranged from 16 to 8392 ORAC units, a 525-fold difference. Since there are no industry standards for products’ antioxidant capacity, there is little assurance of a high quality product, the researchers reported in the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association, 1999 (vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 46-56). A single serving of fresh or freshly cooked fruits or vegetables, however, supplies an average of 300 to 400 ORAC units. Many fruits and vegetables, such as berries, plums, oranges, leafy greens and beets, provide much higher antioxidant levels. By contrast, 28 of the 40 berry extracts tested and one of the six other products wouldn't provide 300 ORAC units in a day’s suggested intake.

Spinach, Broccoli Vitamin K Okay
People aged 18 to 44 probably don’t get enough vitamin K, according to a recent USDA/Proctor & Gamble Company survey reported in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1999 (vol. 99, pp.1072-1076). In a sample of 4,742 men, women and children, those over 65 consumed more vitamin K than 20- to 40-year-olds. Only half of females age 13 and older—and fewer than half the males—got the Recommended Dietary Allowance. Known for aiding blood clotting, vitamin K is gaining recognition for activating at least three proteins involved in bone integrity. It is found in some oils, especially soybean oil, and in dark green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli. One serving of spinach or two servings of broccoli can provide four to five times the RDA. In another study with Yale University School of Medicine, researchers found people absorb vitamin K as well from broccoli as from oil, contrary to the notion that fat-soluble vitamin K is better absorbed from oil or oil-based supplements. Reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1999 (vol. 70, pp. 368-377), the study also showed 60- to 80-year-olds can increase blood vitamin K levels just as readily as 20- to 40-year-olds by increasing intake.

An Accidental Tomato with High Lycopene
Tomatoes with much higher levels of lycopene may be available in the future if ARS research pans out. Lycopene, which gives tomatoes their bright red color, may help reduce the risk of some cancers, according to epidemiological research at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. While working with tomato tissue cultures, an ARS biologist got more than she expected. Not only did the culture develop into a tomato fruit, the fruit's green outer leaves, known as the calyx, also ripened into fruit-like tissue. Called VFNT Cherry, the variety itself was very dark red, with lycopene content 10 times the amount in most commercial tomatoes, the researchers reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1998, (vol 46, pp. 4577-4582). Now they are looking for the genes that are activated to increase lycopene production so they can learn how to activate them in commercial varieties.

Boosting Calcium in Produce
Modifying a gene that causes plants to store excess calcium might one day make fruits, vegetables and grains a better source of this important nutrient. A researcher found "turning on" a gene that controls production of a protein called Calcium Exchanger 1 (CAX1) can increase calcium content of plant cells. Maximizing production of CAX1 increased calcium content of root cells by more than 100 percent and leaf cells by nearly 30 percent, he reported in Plant Cell, 1999 (vol.11, pp. 2113-2122). He believes CAX1 genes act as calcium regulators. When cellular calcium content gets too high, the gene is turned on, triggering production of CAX1 protein, which moves calcium out of the cellular fluid into a storage compartment. Once calcium levels return to normal, the gene is turned off. By keeping the CAX1 gene turned on, he created a condition where calcium levels in the cellular fluid were constantly depleted. While the mechanism is unknown, the end result was an increase in the cell’s overall calcium content. But CAX1 plants did not grow well in cold temperatures or in high levels of common soil minerals like magnesium and potassium. The next step is to limit CAX1 expression to edible portions of plants in hopes of increasing calcium content of foods, yet allowing plants to adapt to environmental stresses.

Game May Improve Kids’ Eating Habits
A video game called "Squire's Quest!" might entice kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, according to scientists who are creating and testing it with 1,600 children in Houston elementary schools. The game is part of an innovative nutrition education program developed by research psychologists, behavioral nutritionists, a health educator and a freelance writer. U.S. children now eat only about two to three-and-one-half servings of fruit and vegetables daily, instead of the five to nine servings recommended. Each child playing the video game starts as a squire and enters into training to become a knight. Knights help to protect an imaginary kingdom called "Five-A-Lot" from invaders bent on destroying its fruits and vegetables. As squires earn points toward various levels of knighthood, they learn about fruits, pure fruit juices, and vegetables. The game is part of a series of ten 25-minute classroom sessions in which kids make tasty virtual recipes using produce. They set personal goals for making those recipes at home and for eating at least one more serving of a fruit or vegetable at a specific meal or snack. Scientists expect to finish analyzing the results of their experiment by the end of summer 2000. An evaluation of their school-based intervention, Gimme 5, appears in Health Education and Behavior, 2000 (vol. 27(1), pp. 96-111).

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Safety and Equality of Fresh-cut Produce

by John Williams, Jr.
Silliker Laboratories Group, Inc.

Fresh Cut
April 2000

Fresh-cut produce, minimally processed refrigerated fruits and vegetables, is a widely popular and expanding segment of the food industry.

As one of the runaway food success stories of the 1990s, sales of these ready-to-eat products are expected to comprise 26 percent of all produce sales in the United States this year. Impressive sales in Europe, Asia, and Australia are transforming fresh-cut produce into a global phenomenon.

However, recent food-borne illness outbreaks involving E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella (lettuce, cantaloupe, and sprouts); Shigella (parsley and lettuce); and Cyclospora (raspberries), have drawn consumer and regulatory attention to the produce industry in general and to fresh-cuts as well.

Safety Concerns for Produce
In many respects, this attention is understandable considering four concerns. First, fresh produce does not ordinarily undergo a kill step—such as cooking or irradiation—that would eliminate potential pathogenic organisms.

Second, the longer shelf lives (10-14 days) that are now common, due to sophisticated packaging and good temperature control, may provide sufficient time for some pathogens to reproduce that normally would not have been able to reach problematic levels in shorter time periods.

Third, modified atmosphere packaging may suppress spoilage organisms that organoleptically signal the end of shelf life. Outgrowth of potentially pathogenic organisms, should they be present, could occur without altering the sensory properties of the product, resulting in the loss of a warning signal to the consumer that the product may not be safe.

Fourth, high populations of bacteria and/or fungi may result in deterioration of quality and reduce shelf life.1

In addition to the preceding concerns, fresh-cut produce suppliers and manufacturers must be cognizant of a broad range of pre-and post-harvesting issues (Table 1).

From field to consumer, the production of safe fresh-cut produce is dependent on a number of interrelated factors. Three of the most critical are sanitation practices, time and temperature controls for raw and finished goods, and modified atmosphere packaging of finished products.

Raw Materials and Sanitation Practices
The lack of a terminal heating step in the production of fresh-cut products punctuates the importance of quality raw materials and efficient sanitation practices.

Fruits and vegetables are grown in agricultural soils that can harbor as many as 109 CFU/gm of microorganisms. Most of these bacteria, molds, and yeast are completely harmless to the plant and consumers. A few, however, are plant pathogens that can cause plant disease and impair the quality of the product, and a few protect the plant from plant pathogens, helping to maintain food safety.1

Pseudomonas spp., Erwinia herbicola, and Enterobacter agglomerans largely comprise the bacterial microflora of fruits and vegetables. Lactic acid bacteria, such as Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus spp., are also commonly found, as are several species of yeasts (primarily on fruits). Normally, these microorganisms are not harmful to humans, but cause spoilage.

Although bacterial pathogenic contamination of produce can occur almost anywhere along the processing and distribution chain, usually it can be traced to contact with soil and/or animal manure fertilizer at harvest, or at the packinghouse.2 Most fruits are harvested by hand, and thus are not exposed directly to soil. Agricultural workers, however, may collect fallen fruit from the ground, before or after harvest, and contamination can occur.

Fresh produce suppliers commonly rely on water flotation baths to receive fruit. But produce contaminated at harvest can pass through the system and contaminate nearby fruit and the water itself. Subsequent loads of fruit may be contaminated if the bath water is not sanitized to eliminate microbes.

Most packinghouse operators use chlorinated process water (50 to 20 ppm) to control microbial loads. Chlorine and a number of other chemical sanitizers are effective in reducing the level of microorganisms on most produce. But their effectiveness is not absolute. In a study of shredded lettuce containing Listeria and tomato containing Salmonella, the efficacy of chlorinated water was limited.3

The objective of sanitation, however, is not to eliminate all microorganisms. Rather, its role is to manage microorganisms, allowing the competitive inhibition of pathogens—without eliminating all natural flora—and enhance product quality through a reduction of spoilage organisms.

Time and Temperature Controls
The tissues of harvested fruits and vegetables have a shelf life of 7 to 14 days. The rate at which tissue deteriorates depends on the temperature at which produce is held.

While "the colder, the better" is a valuable catch phrase for processors, the International Fresh-cut Produce Association (IFPA) recommends post-harvest holding temperatures between 33°F to 41°F (5°C) to retard microbial growth and enzymatic activity.

Several specialized cooling methods are available to produce operators, including hydrocooling, vacuum cooling, forced-air cooling, and packaged icing. The choice of cooling method often depends on the physical characteristics of the product.

Vacuum cooling is the fastest and most expensive form of cooling and is best adapted to leafy vegetables (i.e., lettuce, cabbage).1 Depending on the operation, many commodities can be cooled by more than one method.

Modified Atmosphere Packaging
For the past few years, the fresh-cut produce industry has capitalized on the convenience of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP).

In some MAP systems, "breathable" ethylene-vinyl acetate film is used in combination with elevated CO2 and reduced O2 levels to retard the rate of microbial growth, enhance product appearance, and extend shelf-life.4

A host of recent studies, however, indicates suppression of spoilage organisms (i.e., pseudomonads), may provide opportunities for slower growing and potentially dangerous organisms, psychrotrophs, to reproduce (Table 2).5

With this knowledge, many fresh-cut produce manufacturers are opting for the obvious benefits of shelf life and challenge studies.

In the hands of trained and experienced researchers, these scientific analyses can provide fresh-cut produce companies with important information on their product’s susceptibility to pathogenic growth, spoilage organisms, and establishing all-important "use by" or "sell by" dates.

Shelf-life studies can also be extremely useful in assessing the efficacy of newer MAP systems, including polyolefin plastomers, a new category of polymer materials that are finding widespread use in the fresh-cut produce industry.

Fresh-cut Produce Forecasts
Forecasts for fresh-cut produce sales growth, both here and abroad, are extremely strong and expected to continue.

As competition mounts around the world, the demand for quality raw fruit and vegetables will escalate, prompting the inevitable introduction of innovative products that will push microbiological and technological boundaries.

Accordingly, producers must use this new information to develop and implement quality systems (sanitation, HACCP, GMPs, vendor certification, etc.), conduct research studies to verify the safety of new formulations and packaging materials, and stay on the forefront of new technologies.

New developments in the use of natural compounds as more effective alternatives to chemical sanitizers are one area of great promise. For example, recent USDA studies show methyl jasmonate, an oil found in all plants but more abundantly so in jasmine and honeysuckle, can protect produce from chill injury which can double shelf-life.6

Other ongoing improvements in the hygienic design of processing and sanitizing equipment, as well as transportation and cooling units, will further contribute to the overall safety and quality of fresh produce.

Sources:

1. International Fresh-cut Produce Association (IFPA). 1996. Food safety guidelines for the fresh-cut produce industry (3rd ed.), Alexandria, VA.

2. Beuchat, L.R. and J-H. Ryu. 1997. Produce handling and processing practices. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 3(4): 1-9.

3. Doyle, M.P. 1990. Fruit and vegetable safety -- microbiological considerations. Hort. Sci. 25(12) 1478-1482.

4. Richter, E.R. 1990. Atmospheric packaging of foods. SCOPE Technical Bulletin. 5(3): 5-8. Homewood, IL.

5. Fain, A.R. A review of the microbiological safety of fresh salads. 1996. Dairy, Food and Environ. San. 16 (3): 146-149.

6. Stanley. D. 1997. Keeping freshness in fresh-cut produce. Agricultural Research magazine (Feb. issue).

Editor’s note: John Williams, Jr. is a senior communications specialist at Silliker Laboratories Group, Inc., Homewood, Illinois, (708) 957-7878, www.silliker.com.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

United/GrowTech 2000
E-commerce: Bringing Efficiency On-line

Fresh Cut
April 2000

PHOENIX — E-commerce is about facilitating relationships between buyers and sellers, according to speakers representing several "dot-com" companies at the United/GrowTech 2000 convention in late February.

During a Sunday morning workshop and at Monday’s popular Produce Outlook 2000 luncheon on February 28, speakers discussed the ramifications of a veritable explosion of Internet trading companies offering what Greg Flood of buyproduce.com called a "fully integrated business solution for buyers and sellers in the agricultural industry."

"I think there are some very obvious things we can say about business-to-business e-commerce," said Marina Kotsianas, president and CEO of Agribuys.com. "They obviously have to do with productivity. It’s about a mechanism that allows you to make your system more efficient and grow your sales."

There’s more, too. How much more, only time will tell, according to Kotsianas. E-commerce is still in its infancy and there is still much to be discovered and developed as the industry begins to use it.

"It’s a new technology. We don’t know where it’s going to go," Kotsianas continued. "We’re going to discover this together. It’s pretty much like any technology. When telephones and cellular phones came along, you never knew how much you were going to use them and how it was going to change your life. We know it’s going to make your more profitable and help you grow."

"A Total Solution"
Kotsianas and Flood were panelists in Sunday’s workshop entitled "The Future of E-Trade in Produce." Other speakers included John Abkes of DTN, Rick Harris of Globalfoodexchange.com and Win Winogrond of World Commerce Online.

Winogrond called Internet services are "a total solution" that will change companies completely, but predicted the complexity of the technology will result in a rather slow rate of adoption by the produce industry.

"At its most simplistic, we tell people what they do today over telephone or fax will simply migrate to a web-based system," Winogrond explained. "The first thing will probably be simply the buying and the selling as you’re able to trade on the system. Because it’s so complicated to integrate into your company, it’ll probably be slow. It will end up being totally integrated with your back office, with your general ledger, everything you do. They are not simple processes and they are not going to happen overnight."

While evolution is inevitable, taking a wait-and-see attitude toward e-commerce won’t make it any easier to embrace, according to Chuck James, CEO of ProduceOnline.com, who was part of the panel discussion held at Monday’s luncheon. In fact, James pointed out those who embrace the technology early will have the opportunity to influence its development, helping to customize it to their individual business needs.

"Just like there’s AOL 4.0 that’s out today, there was AOL 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and there’s going to be AOL 10.0," he explained. "But the reason that AOL has gotten better and better is that they listen to their customers and continue to incorporate features that they were looking for. So that’s why I think produce companies should get involved with the dot-coms and say, ‘Let’s get involved and let’s make sure this thing happens so it will fit my needs.’

"There are rule-makers and rule-takers. The people that get involved early are going to be the rule-makers. If you wait too long, the system is going to be developed for the needs of the people that got involved early on and you may end up having to change some of your basic processes after the concept has taken off."

Brokers who have already embraced e-commerce are "even further ahead than some of the suppliers," according to Flood.

"We will have a complete data warehouse they can use to take back to their customers as category management information," Flood explained. "Those who started with us last November will have information by next November as to what their customers’ buying habits were a year ago. They’ll be able to facilitate a critical discussion like, ‘This is what it looked like last Thanksgiving. This is what it looked like last Christmas.’"

Just the Beginning
James agreed, "A lot of people are focused on reducing transaction fees by going from paper-based systems to electronic systems. We believe that is just the very beginning of what is going to happen. Once you start recording transactions electronically or digitally, you start to amass vast stores and quantities of data. The uses for this data are going to generate information that’s going to help us run our businesses better."

While ancillary services such as data storage and retrieval will certainly help both buyers and sellers, some of the most important advantages of e-commerce will be realized by sellers who should be able to reduce both sales and marketing costs by doing business over the Internet.

"It is an integrated solution that starts with the grower/shipper," said Flood. "We have regional and seasonal grower/shippers who say, ‘I don’t want to have AP and AR staff that I’ve got to train for four months and then let go.’

"We have a track record. This technology is going to touch your AP and AR immediately. Most importantly, it’s going to touch invoice reconciliation. We have not talked to a major retailer in this country who has not told us that, at a minimum, 20 percent of their invoices have to be reconciled. And I can tell you from the grower/shipper side, it’s the same way. When we get to the point where we can touch cash flow and we can touch product flow, then there is a business solution."

Efficient Selling
Kotsianas agreed there are efficiencies to be realized with e-commerce. She pointed out sellers will be able to receive requests from a larger group of buyers without making phone or personal sales calls.

"The program will give you the buyers that are interested in your product," she explained. "That will happen instantly and globally for you. You will then be able to respond to a thousand buyers around the world with the click of a button. You’ll be able to make a decision about whether you want to sell to a particular buyer or not based on their profile, their credit history and the relationship you might have with them."

Sellers will be able to exercise a variety of controls on who sees their product offerings and prices, according to Harris. He pointed out a seller can offer a truckload of apples or watermelon to an entire marketplace of buyers or just to five favorite customers or even to one specific buyer with whom he has a good relationship.

Most panelists insisted their systems are not auctions. Prices and offers remain confidential. Buyers usually have only one opportunity to make a second offer, according to Flood.

"We believe in facilitating relationships between existing buyers and existing growers," he reasoned. "We have 835 customers signed up to date and 54 percent are buyers. You have a chance to be exposed to the ones that you normally do business with. They would then procure the product. If you offer the produce at $8, they would have one opportunity to say, ‘I might like to do it at a lesser price because I’m buying in volume.’"

"Real Time" Information
Flood displayed a hand-held data and information entry tool from Casio that gives sellers an opportunity to take digital photos of produce and transmit the images along with other information to the computerized system for dissemination to potential buyers on the Internet. He said sellers can be notified by e-mail or pager in "real time" when customers accept an order. Once accepted logistics can be worked out via the e-commerce web site.

"It’s the wave of the future," said John Abkes. "It is integration, efficiency and simplification."

Because the dot-com companies are investing in e-commerce systems, the cost of setting up a company for e-trade is relatively low, according to Abkes. In most cases a computer with a web-browser program is enough to get started.

"I don’t need a piece of your business to do something that you’re doing already," Abkes explained. "We’re a completely transaction-based cost system. When you move a transaction from point A to point B, it would a cost, just like picking up the phone. You pay only when you sell."

Kotsianas noted there are no up-front costs or fees to register on Agribuys.com. The only fee charged is one half of one percent of the amount of each transaction.

Low Startup Costs
"There is no cost for listing products on our site," agreed Rick Harris. "We do have a sliding transaction fee schedule. It is based on the volume of transactions that are completed on the site. We’re talking to CEOs and sales folks. They’re saying, ‘Let us do our business.’ It comes down to whether your company wants to put money into building their own Internet system or put their funds into building new product lines. That’s what it really gets down to: your decision process on where you’re going to go and how much cost is going to be pulled out of your system."

"It took about 70 or 80 years after the invention of telephones to come up with telemarketing," Winogrond said. "This is a brand new world of being able to sell and market on the Internet. The web is going to give you some totally new marketing techniques that very few people have even seen yet. You’ll end up getting much more powerful and much less expensive direct selling and marketing tools."

James added, "I personally see no reason why the Internet is going to bypass the produce industry when it’s having such a profound impact in every other industry and in so many parts of our lives. It’s not like it’s going to go away. I think we should all come together and work together to develop the best platform for the industry."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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E-commerce
Online Firms Racing for Market Share

Fresh Cut
May 2000

Everyone agrees e-commerce is in its infancy, but this fledgling industry may be growing up faster than expected. A growing number of dot-coms are hustling to compete for business, pitching everything from low transaction fees to high-tech services. Meanwhile, buyers and sellers are recognizing the advantages of Internet technology, though the tidal wave of new e-commerce companies is a little overwhelming to some.

"The noise level in the dot-com space seems to be increasing, rather than decreasing," according to Minos Athanassiadis of Agribuys.com, Torrance, California. "We would have thought we’d see a reduction in the introduction of new sites, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. It’s making it difficult for those people who have to review the different sites and their benefits. Their job isn’t getting easier."

E-commerce is an easy choice for buyers, who usually do not need to worry about user fees, according to Athanassiadis. Sellers, however, may have mixed emotions.

"Some suppliers are feeling these sites are being forced down their throats," according to Athanassiadis, who came to Agribuys.com after a long career on the supplier side of the business. "The reality of the matter is there are significant benefits for suppliers as well. I can say this with some authority, but it’s the fact that suppliers in our industry have been dictated to for such a long time. They see this as yet another point that is being forced on them.

Recognizing Value
"This is a new product introduction, no different than baby vegetables, fresh-cut or husked and wrapped corn. People just weren’t used to doing things in certain ways, but once you showed them value in doing some new things and the value became apparent, they started adopting it. E-commerce isn’t much different."

Athanassiadis made some of his remarks during a press conference for Agribuys.com at the United show in late February when Marina Kotsianas, president and CEO of the company, announced user fees of only .5 percent of each online transaction with a maximum charge of $995 per transaction.

Since that time, Robert Bonavito, CEO of TradingProduce.com, Livermore, California, has announced his company will charge no trading fees at all. Instead, trading customers will pay a simple $99 monthly membership fee, meaning the more business they transact on the system, the cheaper the service will become.

Transacting business on the Internet is just the beginning, according to Bonavito, whose company plans to create revenue from value-added services such as logistics, analysis tools, engineering and financial services. Bonavito has announced his trading site is privately held, backed by the $550 million Bay Isle investment fund of San Francisco, as well as private Silicon Valley investors and Rabobank International.

Venture Capital Is Key
Hefty financial backing is a key element in the highly competitive world of e-commerce. Greg Flood, president and CEO of buyproduce.com, says the Irvine, California-based web site is backed by Sequoia Capital, the same group that backed Yahoo!, Apple and Sysco Systems.

Flood said buyproduce.com has also invested heavily in a top management team that includes Robert Verloop, former president of the California Avocado Commission and Bruce Knobeloch, previously director of produce for Schnuck Markets Inc., St. Louis, Missouri.

Proprietary software represents another large investment for buyproduce.com, according to Flood. The company built its trading platform in conjunction with Microsoft Corporation and Compaq. The software works so well, Microsoft is writing a white paper about it and buyproduce.com may be licensing it to other companies in the future.

"Sequoia Capital is an enormous component in our success," Flood stated about the investment needed to get the company up and running. "We have 93 employees right now. Thirty-six of them are just dealing with customer service in the office and 14 of them are scattered around the country signing up buyers and sellers on our site. We recently hired Francisco Jardim as director of international sales in South Africa. He has signed up six customers this week. We’ve got customers all around the globe."

Buyers and Sellers Signing Up
Flood pointed out buyproduce.com has signed nearly 900 companies onto its site. About 52 percent of those are buyers and 48 percent are sellers. Customers are located in all 50 states, including Hawaii. Others are located in Chile, South America, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Western Europe.

Other dot-coms are following similar paths toward a share of the Internet marketplace. ProduceOnline.com of South Pasadena, California, has hired a glittering array of produce industry luminaries, including Leonard Batti, formerly of Tanimura & Antle, and Lorri Koster, formerly of Mann Packing Company, according to Chuck James, founder and CEO.

James, a Wharton MBA, represents the fourth generation of his family to be involved in the produce industry, having grown up with the family business, C.H. James & Company, founded in 1883. His fresh-cut processing business serviced the McDonald’s system in the Western United States. ProduceOnline.com has also received backing from investors and a group of strategic partners led by Altos Ventures.

ProduceOnline.com recently formed a strategic alliance with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) to develop and implement new technologies for the company’s web site. With Stanford University, CSC recently co-authored The Efficient Foodservice Response, a study that identified $14.3 billion in savings that could be achieved if e-commerce strategies and other business solutions were adopted, according to James.

Responding to Feedback
"We released our version 1.2 in March," James reported. "We’re continuing to add features based on what our users are asking us for. But we view these transactions as just the foundation for what we want to do. We’re really moving toward knowledge-based management for produce companies and processors who have to manage their inventories better and integrate into the operating systems of retailers and other large buyers."

James cited Walmart as an example of a company that has gained efficiencies using computer technology and the Internet. The company entered the grocery arena only about six years ago and has already become a major player in food retailing.

"They did this through the management of information technology and data and by building what is probably the most universally admired distribution system in the world. I think a lot of other companies are realizing the importance of data to build what we call decision support tools that enable them to run leaner inventories, get faster turns, increase sales, and understand more about what their customers are doing so they can support them."

Automating routine activities associated with produce transactions enables sellers to focus more intensively on their core business, according to Agribuys.com’s Athanassiadis.

Efficient Use of Time
"You don’t want the people that understand the growing, distributing and merchandising of produce to be sitting around trying to reconcile an invoice that for whatever reason wasn’t reconciled," Athanassiadis said. "E-commerce is going to give these individuals more face-to-face time, to let them do what they do best."

As with any new technology, there are skeptics that are slow to embrace e-commerce, but Athanassiadis said the pace at which new customers are coming online is increasing.

"If you’d asked me two months ago how long this is going to take for people to actually start transacting, I would have said maybe six months to a year," he continued. "Now I’m saying it’s going to be three months, maybe six months. The rate of change is absolutely overwhelming.

"People have to accept it. It’s not that they are more open-minded. They are just realizing there are significant benefits and they’re jumping on the bandwagon. The majority of people are not skeptics. They’re intelligent evaluators."

One supplier who is embracing e-commerce is Dennis Gertmenian, founder, CEO and chairman of the board of Ready Pac Produce, Irwindale, California. An investor and charter member of ProduceOnline.com, the 31-year veteran of fresh-cut processing said his company wanted to be "on the front end" of online trading.

Making Sound Choices
"Learning from the ground up is always a more certain way to embrace technology," Gertmenian reasoned. "Secondly, there are going to be so many choices and so many decisions that have to be made on anything new like this that the more knowledge our people have, the more they will pay attention to it because they’re involved in it. It will allow us to make better decisions as to what is best for Ready Pac. And of course there’s always the chance the investment in this process will be well rewarded."

As for streamlining business practices, Gertmenian added, "So many things can be done more efficiently through these systems. It’s going to save time and probably help the mistake factor as well. We think in many cases, with these systems live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we’ll ultimately deliver fresher product to the customer with fewer glitches."

Automating product offerings on the Internet will enable smaller firms to gain greater exposure in the marketplace without adding to sales and marketing costs, according to Milas Russell, president of Sandstone Marketing, Brawley, California. Russell recently committed to transact all sales of his honeydews, mixed melons and dried onions on the buyproduce.com site.

Increasing Market Exposure
"Sandstone’s market exposure will increase as much as 10-fold using the buyproduce.com digital marketplace," Russell said. "For a small to medium shipper, that is a distinct advantage. This technology will allow Sandstone to serve its customers through real-time transactions and up-to-the-minute status of each order."

Multiplying sales, marketing and even buying efforts is at the heart of the advantages e-commerce offers to the produce industry, according to Kotsianas. It isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel and go through repetitive motions every time a buyer requests a quote or every time a seller sends out a quote.

"We have a feature on our system called myQuote that enables suppliers to automate their routine offerings," she said. "And myRFQ, an electronic standing order form, was created for buyers who regularly place repeat orders."

Seamless integration of new technology is also a goal for e-commerce, according to Greg Flood. Buyproduce.com has partnered with CASIO Soft, Inc., to implement CSI MobileLink™, a hand-held computer and digital camera that uses Windows CE to help sellers collect and transmit product information and data, as well as photos, in real time to company headquarters where they can be forwarded to prospective buyers.

"MobileLink will enable growers to upload real-time images of the crop along with quality information from the field to potential buyers using the buyproduce.com digital marketplace," Flood explained. "This technology is going to revolutionize the produce industry."

As e-commerce evolves, service providers are recognizing the need to become a one-stop shopping source, especially for retail buyers. Sheena Kuruvilla, who is in charge of business development at GlobalFoodExchange.com, said retailers have repeatedly told her company any site they use must be able to provide a variety of product offerings.

"Produce buyers are still produce buyers and poultry buyers are still poultry buyers," Kuruvilla said. "They don’t buy in these other areas, but they all come under the department called perishables. From a management standpoint, they prefer to have their buyers use one site."

GlobalFoodExchange.com recently released version 1.1 of its software and expects to release new versions in the future, according to Kuruvilla. She noted the company is working with a leading computer integration firm to create a seamless system that fully integrates transactions into the computer systems of both buyers and sellers.

"We believe it is going to be to any retailer’s benefit to use a system that offers the same types of integration solutions for all the different types of products they would purchase," she explained. "Every sale will be automatically plugged into their back end systems. They would not have to buy any new software or anything."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

IFPA Conference Report
It's a Brave New World

Fresh Cut
May 2000

DALLAS — "I grew up listening to my father taking orders over the phone on Saturday mornings when I stopped by the office waiting for him to take me home," Chuck James recalled. "That’s probably not the highest and best use of the senior executive’s time just to be sitting there saying, ‘Okay. . .all right. . .okay. . .all right,’ but that’s what I grew up with and that’s what we want to automate."

Automation and efficiency are at the heart of e-commerce, according to James, who spoke of his family business during a March 10 workshop entitled "E-Commerce: A Brave New World" at the International Fresh-cut Produce Association’s 13th annual conference.

Founded in 1883, C.H. James & Company of Pasadena, California, eventually became a fresh-cut processor and distributor, then divested that operation in 1999 to form an e-commerce subsidiary called ProduceOnline.com.

Moderated by Bob Swartwout of Graziano Produce Company, Inc., Portland, Oregon, the workshop also included remarks by Greg Flood of buyproduce.com, Irvine, California. Both speakers acknowledged e-commerce is in its infancy and everyone is still learning, but the future holds unlimited promise.

"Speaking of e-commerce, let’s not get confused by the jargon," James explained. "All these things are tools to help us manage our business better."

Five E-trade Benefits
Flood mentioned five benefits e-commerce can bring to the produce industry: communications; finance; advanced technology; a paperless world; and category management.

"Remember the good old days of communication in produce when you talked to your customer about relevant issues, before fax machines, before things that took you away from day-to-day business?" Flood asked the workshop audience. "E-commerce is bringing communication back. Those relationships between buyer and seller are critical. What goes off-line is the process side of it, the paper side, the order side. Communication will flourish."

E-commerce can help companies streamline finances, according to Flood. He said one buyproduce.com client has outsourced accounts payable and accounts receivable to the online company in order to sharpen the focus on his core competency.

Referring to the CASIO® hand-held computer and digital camera used at buyproduce.com for data collection and transmission, Flood pointed out how technology can reach all levels of the supply chain to streamline crop estimates, order entry, field inspections and other activities.

"When advanced technology comes along for farmers who have been making crop estimates with a pencil and paper for the last 30 years and they have something they can hold in their hand that runs Windows CE that enables them to send a picture to their sales office and their customer in real time, that’s value-added," Flood announced.

Eliminating Paper
Speaking about the promise of a paperless world through e-commerce, Flood quoted Peter Drucker as saying, "There is nothing more ridiculous in an organization than making more efficient what should not be done at all."

Flood said the produce industry does not need paper for conducting business because once data has been entered accurately into an electronic system, it can be communicated in exactly the same form to all parties involved with the click of a mouse.

"We are fast coming to a time where everything can be done without paper, including funds transfer," he said. "Why do we reconcile invoices that we can get correct from the start with a hand-held device that no longer tethers the buyer, the seller, the inspector or the field man to their truck, desk or table? I talked to a grower/shipper in Phoenix with over $300 million in sales. He said 40 percent of his invoices go out incorrectly. You don’t think there’s value-added in e-commerce?"

Finally, Flood predicted e-commerce will put category management into the hands of the supplier as well as the buyer by enabling both to store and track transaction data for as long as seven years.

James used a major foodservice distributor and Walmart as examples of how e-commerce systems can drive costs out of a company’s business activities.

Walmart Is a Leader
"Walmart is now the number two chain in the grocery business," James reported. "They very quietly did right around $39 billion last year. People believe they are going to be the number one retailer in the business. The reason why is their information systems and distribution channels. They have used a system traditional old-line grocers have not yet adopted. That’s why they’re very interested in using the Internet and aggregating their information.

"What you don’t want to do is to have an order generation system in-house and then have to stop, print and enter it into the computer system to start doing orders. Any time the data changes hands, it’s an opportunity for error. When you can start doing single end-to-end transactions, that’s when this system will really start contributing.

"Many studies have shown the average paper-based system costs over $125 per order to process. E-commerce applications can drive that down to $3 to $5 per transaction. That’s another reason a lot of people are getting excited about this. Another example is the banking industry. The teller transaction is $1.07; bank by mail is 73 cents; bank by phone, 50 cents; bank by ATM is a quarter."

The Internet not only can help drive costs out of the system, but also can free up company personnel to focus on building the business, according to James. He showed a table that indicated five years ago 56 percent of a buyer’s time was being spent on transaction management but five years from today only 25 percent of his time will be required.

Better Transaction Management
"You’re going to cut your transaction management time in half," he continued. "You’re going to cut your material management time in half and you’re going to use this time to develop sourcing, strategy, analysis and also supplier development. And the backbone of these activities is the information we now have available to us that is going to let us manage our business better."

Both James and Flood said e-commerce is an evolving technology and members of the produce industry should embrace it in order to help shape its development.

"If you’ve got AOL at home, you probably have AOL 5.0 or 4.0.," James reasoned. "Guess what? There was a 3.0, a 2.0 and a 1.0. There’s probably going to be a 10.0. AOL was able to develop this by having their customers get involved and give them feedback about what new features were needed. That’s what happens when we get your feedback. Every 60 to 90 days we continue to add functionality to what we offer the industry."

Flood illustrated his point about the evolution of e-commerce with a story about a tightrope walker who made several successful trips across a rope stretched over Niagara Falls. Receiving thunderous applause after completing a final walk pushing a wheelbarrow, he asked the audience if they believed he could take a person across in the wheelbarrow with him.

Into the Wheelbarrow
"The crowd started chanting, ‘We believe,’" Flood recounted. "Then he pointed to the guy closest to him and said, ‘Get in the wheelbarrow.’

"There’s a difference between belief and trust. You can talk about your beliefs all day long, but when the rubber meets the road, where is the trust factor? Are you going to get in the wheelbarrow?

"There are people in this room who have sat in the wheelbarrow with us and they can share their experiences, but I think our industry is about to undergo the most profound change that it has in its history. And I think the best way to modify behavior is not only with a strong belief system but also with someone you trust."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

E-commerce
Online Floral Firm Seeks Produce Niche

Fresh Cut
May 2000

ORLANDO, Fla. — World Commerce Online started it’s online community in the floral industry in 1996 and now has plans to parlay its experience and technology to e-commerce for fresh produce, according to Robert Shaw, CEO and chairman.

"We were there in much the same way as people like Compuserve and AOL were there in the very beginning," Shaw reports. "They were aggregating communities of people with a common interest and that’s how World Commerce Online (WCO) started. But we started with the community of the global floral industry."

The world floral industry represents about $200 billion annually in sales of fresh cut flowers, according to Shaw. About 70 percent of those transactions are handled through Amsterdam, Holland, where WCO has two offices.

"When we first started, it was the community of the flower industry," he explains. "It was good communications tools, good e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, things like that, just for the floral industry, then information about everything that was going on in the industry—where are the world trade shows for flowers? What are the breeders bringing out? New varieties of flowers.

"If you aggregate a community online, you will then find that they will do business. So the whole theory behind WCO is you aggregate the community, you provide them communications and information and then trade follows. You get them coming there and guess what? Then they trade."

From Flowers to Produce
Shaw says WCO is moving more than a million stems of flowers a week over the exchanges on its web site, www.FloraPlex.com.

Today, WCO is in the process of constructing a new web site for produce called www.FreshPlex.com. The company plans to apply the same principles to global fruit and vegetable markets that have helped establish FloraPlex.com as a viable site for flowers.

"If you look where the producing nations are and where the consuming nations are, you see very much the same thing in the global produce business as you do in flowers," Shaw reasons. "The developing nations grow and the developed nations consume."

With offices in Southern France, Nairobi, Kenya, Jerusalem, Israel, Quito, Ecuador, Bogota, Colombia, Amsterdam and Orlando, Shaw says WCO is already positioned to include fruits and vegetables in its online offerings. The company is working now to aggregate the world produce community to its web site much as it has already done for flowers.

To help with the project, WCO has commissioned Novelle Consulting, LLC, Laguna Beach, California, according to Shaw. Novelle executives boast 150 years of combined experience in the produce industry and have helped WCO set up their system.

Applicable Lessons
"A lot of the lessons we’ve learned in the flower business are very appropriate for the produce business," Shaw explains. "The similarities are very much there, particularly at the supermarket level. Every major supermarket has a major investment in an internal floral operation. In fact, in a lot of supermarkets, the floral operation is a very significant part of the store in terms of floor space. If you go up the food chain, the same people are ultimately responsible for fresh products, flowers, tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli and everything else."

Internet marketing is especially a good strategy for grower/shippers, according to Shaw.

"Our technology, infrastructure and trading models are proven in the way farms really want to do business," he says. "We have learned all farms are not created equal and the worst thing that can happen to quality farmers is to turn their products into commodities. Once you turn them into commodities, then the quality farms lose their identity or branding, if you will. Our trading engine—it’s called the Fresh Purchase Network (FPN)—is a true exchange. It is a bid/ask system between growers and buyers.

"If you’re a grower at a supermarket, you have about four or five of what you consider to be your first tier farms. Every day you see online what your first tier has to offer. Then if your first tier farms aren’t there, you can bring up your second and third tier farms. In every case, however, the ability to negotiate online is very important to both parties. It’s truly a bid/ask system."

Making Trading Easier
Trading on the Internet saves time and effort, especially for buyers, according to Shaw.

"I have been in supermarket purchasing departments and seen the produce buyers with literally stacks of faxes piled around their feet, trying to go through all the information that’s aggregated from all their suppliers," he explains. "Here, all that information is presented on one screen and it certainly makes their lives a lot easier."

Internet technology is especially effective for grower/shippers in less developed countries who are trying to contact bigger markets in developed countries like the United States, Shaw reports.

"Language and distance and just being able to be found, if you will, forces them to participate in a pretty extensive brokerage operation," Shaw continues. "Brokers in every industry really provide information conduits. A broker basically provides information. He knows where the suppliers are and he knows where the buyers are. The efficiency of the Internet means buyers and sellers have now found each other. Brokers will begin to look more like a direct farm representative as opposed to a kind of intermediary who makes money on the spread."

The Internet has enabled a variety of companies to reinvent themselves and extend their reach to larger circles of customers, Shaw points out.

Reinventing Produce Trade
"The best example of a company reinventing itself is Charles Schwab, where bigger companies like Merrill-Lynch said their clients didn’t want to trade online," Shaw adds. "Charles Schwab just made every trade $29.99 and let people do it on the Internet. It completely changed their company. Now Charles Schwab has as big a market cap as Merrill-Lynch does.

The impact of Internet technology on the world of business cannot be ignored, no matter what the business, according to Shaw.

"Everybody will have to enable their companies for the Internet eventually," he adds. "There will be no choice, but the people who do it earlier are so far ahead of the game. It’s more painful if you’re playing catch-up.

"There are so many examples. Toys-R-Us could have been E-Toys. Barnes & Nobel should never have let Amazon get started. All of these companies have now changed, but in the process, they created a major competitor because they didn’t change."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

IFPA Conference Report: Away-from-home Trend Boosts Fresh-cut

Fresh Cut
May 2000

by Dr. Elizabeth Sloan
Sloan Trends & Solutions, Inc.

By its very nature, fresh-cut produce is most perfectly positioned of all U.S. food industry segments to take advantage of many accelerating consumer trends and desires for convenience, health and good taste, especially in the rapidly changing away-from-home market. In terms of health, Americans already consider fresh fruits and vegetables to be the perfect food—outpacing whole grain breads, yogurt and pasta (United Soybean Board, 1998).

Demographic trends, too, are working in fresh-cut’s favor. Affluent, busy families currently make up a large proportion of fresh-cut purchasers. Next to the original "baby boom generation," America’s "baby boomlet"—now 72 million strong—will equal post-war baby boomers by 2005 (Figure 2). Since 75 percent of women with children aged 6 to 17 and 64 percent with children under 6 years of age are working full- or part-time, pressure on home chores like cooking will continue to escalate (Goff, 1999).

In addition, fresh-cut produce will continue to appeal to 76 million health-conscious, affluent baby boomers who will remain a dominant force in food trends for at least 30 years. No matter what the age or household situation, fresh-cut will enjoy a strong and sustainable audience for years to come.

Major drivers originally responsible for the fresh-cut boom—labor costs and unskilled labor issues—are escalating, too. Supermarkets are experiencing the highest labor turnover ever—51 percent—and demand for skilled professional restaurant managers will reach an unprecedented half million in 2006 (FMI, 1999b; Sheridan and Yee, 1999).

Retailers must teach workers about food safety and hire people to answer a growing number of consumer questions. Many are offering new and different foodservice options that also increase costs. Training for a produce clerk now requires 31 hours (FMI, 1999b). Since supermarkets draw mostly from the 16- to 24-year-old age group, finding dedicated workers promises to remain a difficult task.

Trends Developing
As consumers continue demanding healthy foods in a hurry, important trends are developing among the away-from-home eating crowd.

Salads hold a prominent position on America’s menus. In fact, as seen in Figure 3, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine’s 1999 Menu Census, Caesar salad ranks eighth as the nation’s leading seller in all restaurants. Caesar salad with chicken is listed as 10th and tossed green salad, the one most frequently offered on menus, is 12th. Bruschetta is the top all-around item most likely to be added to menus and ranch dressing is fifth (Sheridan and Yee, 1999).

Fresh-cuts are also the most frequently purchased of all supermarket meal solutions. Thirty-six percent of shoppers purchase fresh-cut and cleaned vegetables weekly and 31 percent buy them one to three times per month. About 19 percent of shoppers purchased fresh-cut bagged salads weekly and 31 percent bought them one to three times per month (FMI, 1999 – Figure 4).

Retail Foodservice Is Strong
Salads have become an integral part of in-store supermarket foodservice with main-dish salads accounting for 7.3 percent of sales. While it’s been rumored in-store foodservice sales are slipping at retail, sales hit $12.1 billion in 1999, up 10.6 percent—nearly double the 4.6-percent increase in deli sales. About half of in-store foodservice items were sold via the deli (48 percent), 12 percent through separate hot-service counters and 40 percent through self-serve refrigerated cases (Figure 5–Litwak, 1999).

The migration by American chefs and culinary leaders toward Pacific Rim cuisine will eventually have a dramatic—and highly desirable—effect on fresh-cut. Fruits and vegetables are a cornerstone of Pacific Rim cooking. As foodservice use of these ingredients escalates, this trend will force "fresh to get fresher."

As white tablecloth chefs embrace organic, look for the trend to fresh, simple and seasonal food to close the gap toward "living foods." The popularity of farmers’ market look-a-likes, "roots-and-all" items, local produce and baby versions of old favorites is on the rise. Authenticity will clearly be part of tomorrow’s fresher trends. The time from "dock to wok" will be a prime concern.

The influx of two other major cuisines, Latin and Caribbean, will also offer fresh produce manufacturers a plethora of new fresh-cut options. Watch for Latin neighbors to the South—Cuba, Argentina and Brazil—to add a twist to the "hot ’n’ spicy" movement with cumin, tropical chiles, saffron, smoked paprika, fiery peppers and yes, even more cilantro.

Today, almost half of all non-commercial foodservice operators consider Nuevo Latino—a mixture of Mexican and Latin American—to be the greatest influence on menu development (Penton Foodservice Media, 1998). As "Rodizio’s"—South American steak houses serving skewered meat and seafood—capture America’s "meat-and-potato" fans, watch for skewered and grilled vegetables to continue to soar (Sloan, 1999b and 1999c). Likewise, the mainstreaming of Caribbean cuisine will be applauded for contributing high-heat grilling and adding subtle new flavors to the growing "sweetness" trend. Expect mango, papaya, pineapple, coconut and lime to stay strong, while fruit salsas and citrus-based chutneys proliferate.

Street Foods
Today’s "on-the-run" society has spawned a new generation of hand-held foods being sold from carts, kiosks and c-stores or made for "grab-and-go" at home. "Street foods" exist for good reasons. Men spend an average of 81 minutes and women 64 minutes per day behind the wheel of a car. With 100 million Americans commuting to work, it’s not surprising more than 15 percent of all meals are eaten in the "car" (Edmondson, 1998; the NPD Group, 1998). What about knapsack-sporting kids? More than half those in grades K-12 are transported to school by bus (School Transportation News, 1998). Only one worker in three uses the lunch hour—now down to 36 minutes—to eat. (U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1998) No wonder we have tablecloths for desks, bibs for the car and console car tables for more formal driving/dining experiences!

Hand-held foods—growing at a rate of 7 percent per year—are expected to reach $2 billion in sales by 2002. Entrees such as pocket sandwiches, burritos, hamburgers and toaster pop-ups account for about 70 percent of the hand-held food market. The remainder includes appetizers and snack rolls (Packaged Facts/Kalorama Information, 1998). More than one billion Lunchables™ have been eaten since 1998. Snack kits have exploded to more than $1 billion in sales!

Sandwich Market Holds Promise
With Gen-Xers as their largest consumers, there’s no question sandwiches are destined to remain strong. More than 45 billion sandwiches are eaten every year. Four out of five Americans say they’ve eaten at least one in the last week. Almost 65 percent of workers eat hand-held meals. Thirty-nine percent say their typical lunch is a sandwich and 14 percent say it’s a hamburger (The NPD Group, 1998). Hamburgers are the third best selling U.S. restaurant item and appear most frequently on American menus (Sheridan and Yee, 1999).

Why not help QSR and other chains differentiate their burgers by providing signature fresh produce toppings? Concern for lighter fare continues to propel the popularity of grilled as well as all-vegetable sandwiches. Chicken breast, club and turkey sandwiches, BLT’s, grilled cheese and roast beef still top the list of America’s favorite foodservice sandwiches (Sheridan and Yee, 1999).

Wraps were the sandwich item most often added to menus in recent years, while all-veggie, grilled-veggie and veggie burgers gained mass-market appeal. Gyros are expected to be most frequently added during the next few years. Look for the next generation of sandwiches to be complete meals unto themselves. These hand-held feasts—which will make lunch seem like dinner—will feature vegetables, flavored sauces, spreads and condiments in addition to the protein and starch that hold it all together. Grilled ethnic breads, signature wraps, mini-portions and specialty greens and condiments will add to contrasting textures and flavors and give America’s favorites a more adventuresome flair.

New Ideas Galore
What about salad cones, single-serve shaker bags and salad rolls using lettuce as the wrapper? McDonald’s McShakers™ boast mainstream appeal. What about a similar car bowl? Fresh stir-fries, soups, chili or fruit snacks could all be made with fresh-cut starter kits or mixes. Why not "take-and-go" veggie/meat mini-skewers, panini fillers, creative Bruschetta toppers or even veggie-stuffed breads? Watch for street food to take on a bite-sized quality as more consumers "surf the net," spend time on cell phones or simply watch TV! (Sloan, 1999d).

With 40 percent of Americans eating away from home on any given day and 30 billion new foodservice eating occasions predicted in 2000, this market segment represents a major opportunity for fresh cut manufacturers. Equally as important is the fact that America’s restaurants are driving in-home eating trends and setting the pace for the American palate. Monitoring restaurant trends is critical for determining emerging markets for fresh-cut produce and for anticipating up-and-coming foods most likely to appeal to mainstream consumers.

Caesar salad remains the best-selling salad across all channels of foodservice, followed by tossed green, which appears on more menus than any other salad (Figure 8). Caesar with shrimp is most likely to be added to the menu, while chicken Caesar and Asian noodle salads are "Rising Stars" in R&I magazine’s Menu Census. Not surprisingly, salad popularity differs by foodservice channel. As seen in Figure 9, coleslaw is the leading seller in nursing homes; taco salad, in schools; and tossed greens, in family restaurants.

Interesting Veggies
Another area that represents an obvious opportunity for fresh-cut manufacturers is increasing interest among diners for interestingly prepared and exotic vegetables. As seen in Figure 10, broccoli still tops the list of restaurants’ best-selling vegetables, while carrots are most often found on menus. Roasted vegetables and artichokes are most likely to be added to menus and are also "Rising Stars." Likewise, food preparation using fresh vegetables for stews, soups, pot pies, and even sandwich wrap mixes will also be popular.

Asian and Mexican specialties represent another enormous opportunity for fresh-cut manufacturers thanks to the amount of fresh ingredients they use and the preparation time needed to make them. Stir-fries are among the most prominent Asian restaurant best sellers, while Asian noodle bowls are the most likely to be added. Dim sum and pot stickers have also been named Rising Stars" (Figure 11). While Nachos remain the best selling Mexican menu items, taco salad, tacos, fajitas and quesadillas are not far behind. Shrimp fajitas are most likely to be added to menus ( Figure 12).

Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from Dr. Sloan’s remarks at the 13th annual International Fresh-cut Produce Association conference in Dallas March 10. For a complete listing of referencec, contact Fresh Cut magazine at (800) 900-2452, extension 101 or call Dr. Sloan at (561) 776-1761.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

From the IFPA Conference: No Substitute for Flavor in Fresh-cut

Fresh Cut
May 2000

DALLAS — If fresh-cut fruit doesn’t taste good, consumers most likely won’t buy it again.

That was the message delivered March 11 at the 13th annual conference of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association by Dr. Adel Kader of the University of California, Davis during a workshop entitled "Where Does Flavor Fall in the Quality Spectrum?"

Moderated by Leo Zanoni of Asgrow Seed Co., the workshop was designed to tackle an issue that often stands in direct conflict with the fresh-cut industry’s ongoing effort to extend product shelf life.

"It’s really essential that any postharvest technology be evaluated on the basis of the postharvest life as determined by flavor and nutritional quality, not appearance and texture only," Kader reasoned. "Appearance is important. Texture is important, but, frankly, if the buyer is not satisfied with the flavor especially, he or she is not likely to buy this product again.

"One of the main messages I’d like to leave with this morning is that the postharvest life of any product based on flavor is significantly shorter than the postharvest life based on appearance. If you see different technologies promoted as being able to keep fresh-cut fruits for 21 or 28 days, be aware that is only based on appearance. Unless that product is going to be just a carrier for some other item like a caramel dip or a chocolate dip or something, that product is not going to taste good."

Freshness and Flavor
Freshness is another issue in fresh-cut fruit that should be of concern to processors who want to deliver high quality products to consumers, according to Kader.

"By definition, the longer the time between harvest and consumption, the less fresh that product is," he continued. "Consequently, the focus should really be on maintaining freshness and flavor rather than just the physical integrity and appearance of the product, which we have all done over the years. There is nothing wrong with a fresh-cut product that only lasts for five to seven days if it still tastes good. You don’t have to have a product that lasts 21 days in order to be able to sell and distribute it."

Much of Kader’s presentation focused on issues that affect fresh-cut fruit quality such as visual appearance, freshness, texture, flavor, color, absence of defects and decay, tissue integrity and turgidity, crispness and firmness.

Flavor is related to and affected by aroma and includes a variety of qualities, including the amount of and kinds of sugars present, acidity, astringency and off-flavors. He suggested testing for soluble solids as an indicator of sugar content may be unreliable due to the fact that other compounds can be present that influence the results produced by a refractometer.

To get the best flavor and quality, it is important to begin with the best possible raw product. Kader suggested starting with the right variety at the proper stage of ripeness and sugar content between 11 percent and 12 percent.

Ripeness Is Critical
With respect to ripeness, some fruits must be ripened before cutting, according to Kader. If cut green and hard, Bartlett pears and mangoes will not taste good when eaten.

Some fruits like cherries, grapes, pineapples and pomegranates will not continue to ripen after harvest. Fruits like apples, pears, quince, stone fruits, kiwifruit and bananas can be harvested mature green and ripened after harvest. Even though melons such as honeydews and cantaloupes will continue to ripen after harvest, Kader said their sugar content will not change and recommended cutting them when they’re at least 75 percent ripe.

Research has shown modified and controlled atmospheres and certain additives can help preserve quality and flavor, but only to a point, according to Kader.

In one study, fresh-cut kiwifruit maintained flavor, appearance and texture longer in an atmosphere of 2 percent to 4 percent oxygen and 5 percent to 10 percent CO2. Treating product with calcium, calcium chloride or calcium lactate also proved helpful in maintaining tissue integrity. In fact, UC Davis researchers found that a solution of 1 percent calcium lactate, 1 percent ascorbic acid and one-half percent cystine would extend the shelf life of fresh-cut Bartlett pears to 12 days. Flavor was best early in the shelf life of the fruit and taste tests revealed it declined gradually when checked at three, five, seven and 10 days.

Melons and Flavor
During the question and answer period, Benny Helton of the Salad Factory, Marietta, Georgia, asked about melon quality and flavor. Dr. Marita Cantwell, also of UC Davis, responded, saying fresh-cut melons will be of highest quality when they are cut at half to three-quarter slip.

"Those are melons that have accumulated the maximum amount of sugars and have very good color," she explained. "If you have a high-colored and high-sugared melon, that’s a good indication of the quality of the product because those parameters don’t change with time. The sugar content is essentially there. What does change will be the firmness of the melon. It is difficult a this time to determine melon firmness at the time of processing and know how well that piece will hold up with time.

"One melon may be firm, have the other quality components in terms of sugar content and high color, yet the firmness will decrease rapidly. You may have another melon that has a more moderate level of firmness and it may maintain the firmness during that post-cutting shelf life. So you can’t predict what firmness and maybe juice loss will be based on initial firmness."

Cantwell also reported that other UC Davis research has shown that if melons are firm, calcium chloride or calcium lactate treatments can help maintain that firmness, but if they are not firm at the outset, treatments will have little effect.

Temperature and CO2
"In terms of storage conditions, fresh-cut melons do respond very well to higher carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," Cantwell continued. "Obviously, temperature is the most critical factor. We have chilling sensitive melons and those that are less chilling sensitive, but once that melon is cut, it has to be as close to zero (degrees Celsius) as possible. Some CO2 in the environment does reduce mold and yeast development."

Cantwell said she has done some flavor testing in conjunction with other research on fresh-cut melons. Her studies have shown that after six to eight days, it is difficult to maintain good flavor in cut melons.

"Visually, the melon can be acceptable up to maybe 15 days, but, again, I would certainly back off substantially on that from the standpoint of eating quality," she said. "We did do a small study looking at the impact of sunburn and the impact of ground spots on melon quality. In terms of the initial quality of the melon, it’s important to avoid those two defects because they are areas of the fruit that will have lower soluble solids. They tend to be less firm and they will have less flavor."

Dr. John Beaulieu, a USDA postharvest research chemist from New Orleans, also responded to questions about flavor, saying he has been investigating the subject for about two years.

"With most of my studies, seven days is where we find there’s a diminished return with regard to melon flavor," Beaulieu said. "When I’m talking about flavor, I’m not talking about soluble solids and I am not talking about sucrose, fructose and glucose. I am talking about all those complicated flavor volatile compounds, the aromas. It’s been known in the literature that these compounds increase as the melon maturity increases. The more ripe you can process melons and have your texture and quality hold up, the better off you’re going to be with flavor in the long run. I’m also finding, however, that these compounds stay around for different periods of time."

Responding to one final question, Cantwell added that she has found soluble solids, as measured with a refractometer, can be a fairly reliable measure of sugar content in melons.

"Sugars are about 75 percent of that soluble solids reading," she explained. "And that does not change significantly."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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Loffredo Fresh Produce Co., Inc.: Fresh-cut Potential

Fresh Cut
June 2000

DES MOINES, Iowa—Foodservice has traditionally been the domain of regional processors, but as both fresh-cut fruit and vegetable party trays become more popular, the folks at Loffredo Fresh Produce Co., Inc., see a great future in retail, as well.

"Extreme" is the word Steve Winders uses to describe the growth potential for fresh-cut produce in the nation’s heartland. The company’s track record over the past four years bears him out. Since Loffredo occupied its new 75,000-square-foot facility four years ago, the fresh-cut side of the business has quadrupled.

"We have strong potential growth in retail in both cut fruit and veggie trays," explains Winders, who is foodservice sales director for Loffredo. "We’ve been doing some testing in chain stores here that has been successful. We carry about 40 different products in retail cut fruit and vegetables and we have about 125 different packs for foodservice. Right now we’re 30 percent retail and 70 percent foodservice, but our vision in the next six months is for it to become almost fifty-fifty."

When your company is more than a century old, the fresh-cut phenomenon seems more like a flicker than a flame, but CEO Gene Loffredo, the first of five children who make up the fourth generation of company ownership, expects the fire to keep burning.

"It’s just continuing on an upward trend and I think it’s going to keep going," he predicts. "I think demand in the future will be meal replacement. Everybody wants food finished for them. We’re seeing more of that even with our core customers, such as our hospitals and corporate commissaries that use a lot of cut fruit."

From Horse & Buggy to a Fleet of Reefers
Gene and his younger brothers, John, Mike, Jim and Larry, are descendants of Guisseppi Loffredo, who founded Loffredo Fruit and Tobacco Company in 1892 to serve hotels and restaurants in downtown Des Moines. He used horses not only for farming but also to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to his customers. In 1918, the company moved to the south side of the city to raise fresh produce on 800 acres.

Ever since those early days, quality has been a Loffredo trademark. While no longer raising produce, the company still handles only the best, distributing such products as Dole lettuce, Sunkist citrus fruit, Grimmway carrots, garlic from Christopher Ranch, Driscoll berries, Greenhouse fresh herbs and avocados from Calavo. Loffredo’s produce buyers all have at least 20 years’ experience in procurement and the company is also a member of Pro*Act, a buying cooperative that not only obtains high quality product but also leverages its members to increase buying power. Loffredo’s is the designated marketer for Pro*Act in all four major cities where it has warehouses.

In addition to a full line of fresh produce, the company also delivers food products such as fresh eggs, pickles, stocks and bases, dried seasonings, cheeses, prepared salads, dairy, and specialty and organic produce, making it more of a one-stop shop for customers.

"My father, Gene Loffredo Sr., who was third generation, got into fresh-cut in the late ‘70s when fast food restaurants were getting started," Gene, Jr. recalls. "We started on a small scale. We were shredding lettuce for McDonald’s, Taco John’s and Burger King back when I was growing up. We also did a lot of washing and peeling potatoes and other items for local hospitals. As the restaurants and salad bars grew and created more demand for fresh-cut and fresh-cut fruit, we got into it on a bigger scale."

Modern Fresh-cut Facility
Today, their modern facility provides 67,000 square feet of refrigerated space, 7,500 of which are dedicated to fresh-cut processing. The company serves about 2,500 customers in a six-state area, including Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri. A fleet of refrigerated trucks, coupled with warehouse and sales facilities in Rock Island, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, and Kansas City, help the company deliver fresh-cut produce and other items to customers within 24 hours or less.

"Fresh-cut means ‘fresh,’" says Jay Garcia, food safety & processing manager at Loffredo. "Fresh fruit doesn’t mean you cut it on Sunday and the customer gets it Wednesday. Fresh means we cut it Wednesday morning and you’ve got it on Wednesday afternoon. You call us at 9:00 in the morning and we start cutting the order at 9:05."

Along with freshness, proper temperature and food safety are also key components of Garcia’s program. Trained in microbiology at the U.S. Army Academy of Health and Science at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Garcia has been with Loffredo about a year. His job experience includes research, developing microbiological diagnostic kits, testing food products, and consulting in quality control and food safety.

To keep the cold chain intact, the company has a fully automated refrigeration system that monitors processing, storage and loading dock temperatures throughout the facility, maintaining them at proper levels for food safety and product quality.

Automated Temperature Control
"Each cooler has multiple temperature sensors," Garcia explains. "If temperatures anywhere in the building fall out of variance, we have audible and visible alarms. If they’re not answered within a certain amount of time, the system is equipped with auto dial-out capabilities. It automatically notifies ADT, our monitoring service, and also pages me. We live in the age of technology when your refrigerator will call you."

Another facet of the food safety effort, the HACCP program, has earned a superior rating from third-party auditor ASI, according to Garcia.

"We’re mandated by some corporate customers to do third-party inspections twice a year," he continues. "We double-dot all our i’s on temperature control, proper sanitizer use and periodic environmental and product testing. We’ve worked with Ecolab to set up one of the best and easiest-to-use sanitizing systems available."

Since food safety is really people, everyone in the organization from top management to plant workers receives training and periodic retraining in HACCP and other food safety principles, according to Garcia.

"We have in-class, hands-on, and one-on-one training," he notes. "We promote all components of food safety daily, including personal hygiene practices, proper sanitation, cross contamination and raw product quality inspections. We use latex gloves, hairnets, lab coats and each station is fully equipped with proper sanitizer, food safety checklist and proper procedures and protocols to ensure the safety and quality of our products.

"We worked with Jennifer Zanders and her staff at J.J. Keller & Associates food safety division. Their training materials are informative and easy to use. They understand cultural diversity in the workplace. We use their Spanish and English training materials. They have helped us convey the importance of food safety to all our employees."

Working for Quality
Garcia’s unique training method takes the pressure and stress of examinations off his employees. He doesn’t pass-fail, but simply makes sure everyone understands the significance of food safety and their own role. He wants to be sure company products are of the utmost quality, produced with consumer safety in mind.

"Each employee gets a take-home study guide." Garcia continues. "They are given a week to read the assignment and it’s discussed in a classroom setting. To emphasize the chapter we conduct hands-on training."

Garcia makes the course fun by using the students themselves for demonstrations.

"It’s informative and entertaining and we build a team culture if everyone’s involved," he says. "It’s intense. We’ve implemented a Total Quality Management (TQM) system at our facility to cover all the bases."

While there are costs associated with training, HACCP and TQM, Garcia says the effort more than pays for itself with satisfied customers who consistently receive top quality product.

"The cost of quarantining product, losing product or recalling product by not maintaining proper temperature and safety totally outweigh the cost of these programs," he reasons. "They more than pay for themselves. Product losses are minimal. They’re so small they don’t even register."

Food safety played a major role when Loffredo Fresh Produce recently updated their fresh-cut vegetable party trays for retail. Garcia says the company made sure even the dip in the center of the tray would not be a food safety hazard in the pack.

"We worked with a custom mold manufacturer to come up with beautiful trays that help with shelf life and also food safety," he explains. "It’s a compartmentalized tray that gives us extended shelf life and considerably reduces the possibility of cross contamination. How many people think about the dips inside those trays? Have they been washed or sanitized or just placed in there with food touching them?"

Fruit Is "Big"
New products can also be developed in collaboration with customers or in response to their requests. Recently, he received an order for 300 pounds of melon balls and had to purchase the proper equipment to determine if the product would be cost effective.

"It was," he reports. "Fresh cut fruit is a big thing. It’s growing exponentially."

While retail growth is an important driver, foodservice—traditionally the company’s mainstay—is expanding, too. Operators may request a signature stir-fry mix or even specify a particular potato variety such as Yukon Gold for a certain recipe.

"We have 11 different stir-fry mixes that we make," Garcia explains. "We do diced yams, shredded Napa cabbage, vegetable blends, carrot coins, carrot sticks, diced carrots, onion strings, sliced cucumber, red, gold and green julienned peppers or rings, quarter B red potatoes, diced potatoes, matchstick potatoes, peeled potatoes, radishes and even a roasted vegetable mix which we recently developed for one of our clients. It now has taken off for other restaurant chains, too."

Steve Winders adds, "Some of the big items we’re seeing are the sliced tomatoes, the diced tomatoes, the julienne peppers, the onions and cut fruit. These are big items for hotels, hospitals and caterers that are having big functions. We were blessed by having the Senior Open here last July at the Des Moines Golf & Country Club. Sliced tomato, celery sticks and cut fruit were some of the big items."

Labor is a key factor influencing foodservice operators and caterers to switch to fresh-cut produce in their kitchens, according to Winders.

Reducing Labor Costs
"In our market it’s an extreme issue," he reports. "Any items that can be cost-effective for them and save labor while maintaining quality and meeting corporate specifications are all of interest. The most common complaint we hear from foodservice operators is about labor, the cost of running ads, soliciting help and all the things associated with maintaining personnel."

The company’s processing department is working with the sales and marketing team to develop a foodservice sales strategy that encourages customers to convert from purchasing whole commodities to processed items, according to Garcia. For example, diced roma tomatoes have become a popular item for many restaurants that were in the habit of assigning kitchen help the task of processing this item.

"They would purchase a box of roma tomatoes and not only have the cost of the product but also labor, shrink issues and equipment costs to overcome," he reports. "We know it would cost them less to buy the equivalent weight already processed, which, in many cases has a much longer shelf life and more consistent quality. They realize the benefits of cost savings and also have the opportunity to re-allocate resources to other areas of their business."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

National Potato Promotion Board Plans to Focus on Value-added Potatoes

Fresh Cut
June 2000

DENVER—Fresh-cut and other value-added spuds will be in the spotlight as the National Potato Promotion Board dramatically alters its past domestic marketing efforts to directly encourage consumers to try meal solutions that include potatoes.

Under its new "Integrated Channel Marketing program" the board will no longer rely on advertising to reach consumers with a message about eating potatoes. Instead all marketing efforts will focus on actually getting consumers to take more value-added potato products home and eat them, according to Linda McCashion, vice president of domestic marketing.

"For years, we’ve been observing the trend that, at home, people are eating fewer and fewer of what we would call old-fashioned or traditional meals where there are at least three parts, including a protein, a starch and a vegetable," McCashion reasons. "And you might have others. People used to have five or six things as part of a meal. Now it’s quite often macaroni and cheese or some other quick-prep item.

"We’ve also seen a decline specifically in at-home usage of potatoes as well as for all of our partners, beef, chicken and other foods that have to be prepared in some way. So we’re looking to see how potatoes and convenient potato products can counter that on the evenings when people are just not willing to cook. We want to find ways to end up on the plate."

"Everybody Loves Potatoes"
While people who eat at home simply aren’t consuming any more potatoes, those who eat out are, according to McCashion, but she doesn’t think potatoes have a popularity problem at home.

"Everybody loves potatoes. That’s absolutely true," she insists. "It’s the convenience. And people aren’t even aware that they’re eating them less at home. It’s just one little decision at a time to open up a box of something else. Their perception of potatoes at this point is that they’re not convenient. That’s where we’re losing ground. Foodservice is certainly convenient, but when they go into the produce department, potatoes don’t look convenient to them."

Peeling and cutting fresh potatoes may be part of the problem, but McCashion also thinks the convenience factor is complicated by the fact that people don’t have a lot of cooking experience. They just don’t plan to have potatoes at home as much as they do other products that they know are easier to prepare.

"I think they know how to bake or mash and that’s kind of the end of the repertoire," she reasons. "But we think convenience products could show them a lot of other quick ways to get to a meal. We know people don’t shop and plan just for side dishes. They want meals. That’s why meal solutions are appealing to us."

Easy Ride for Potatoes
One of the meal solutions McCashion has in mind to promote to consumers is what she calls "Potatoes 1,2,3." Beef and potatoes 1,2,3, then, would consist of a precooked pot roast and a package of precut precooked potatoes.

"You would put them in the microwave and sprinkle one of those little spice packets over the potatoes," she explains. "Then open a package of precut carrots, arrange them on top of the potatoes and add about a half cup of water. Then, cover it, put it in the microwave and in between 10 to 15 minutes, you have this wonderful dinner probably in less time than calling for pizza."

The goal of McCashion’s new domestic marketing program is to connect with consumers and help them see the convenience possibilities with potatoes for easy meals at home.

Part of her strategy will be to partner with retailers that make use of in-store demonstrations to acquaint consumers with convenient and nutritious potato products and preparation ideas. She says the potato promotion board will also test packaging and display ideas with consumers. One idea that may work is to display potatoes beside chili during cold months.

"A lot of the meat departments are being reconfigured according to preparation," she explains. "So if they have a grilling section, for example, we might display our potatoes in the grilling section. They could be cut and ready to go or maybe just with the instructions on how to grill them.

Promoting Meal Solutions
"These are the kinds of concepts we want to get to people and we’re looking for various ways to do it. We might work through meal solution areas of the stores where consumers can buy all these ingredients together for a meal. We’re looking at ideas like that."

The big shift in how the board markets potatoes, then, is in the method it will use to connect with consumers, according to McCashion.

"We’ve been looking at convenience, but we’ve been doing it more through traditional media," she continues. "We’ve been on the radio. We’ve been on shopping carts advertising convenience, but now we really want to find different ways to actually demonstrate and encourage people to try more convenience potato items at home. We want to get more aggressive in putting the idea in their hands.

"That can involve fresh and processed products. For example, in fresh, we haven’t done this yet, but we feel packaging can make a huge difference as far as packaging that tells people this is a potato to bake and here’s how to get the best results. We’ve heard from consumers that they don’t know about different varieties and it can cause a problem. Either they won’t buy the product or they won’t have a good result."

Working with Retailers
McCashion says the board will work directly with supermarket chains to carry out new potato marketing approaches and will employ the services of Willard Bishop Consulting of Barrington, Illinois, experts in the food industry.

The new strategy also includes new products and creating new images for existing products to give consumers new ways to think about potatoes. McCashion says the board will also emphasize nutrition and education programs that help explain the nutritious value of potatoes and their place in a healthy lifestyle.

"We don’t have the expertise for product development, but we do have the expertise to test consumer response to the product, to the packaging and to menu ideas," she says. "We can also get consumer response to how they’re presenting the products and there’s a way they could be better or friendlier to the consumer’s question, ‘What’s for dinner?’ Specifically for processors and foodservice establishments, we can generate recipes as well. People are always wanting something new, but they don’t want to get it by cooking."

McCashion emphasizes the board’s Integrated Channel Marketing program is new and still under development and there’s more to come as plans and ideas come to fruition.

"Watch this spot," she says. "We’re just getting started. We definitely want to be a part of this convenience trend for potatoes and we’re taking our first baby steps."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

IFPA Conference Report: The Selling Power of Flavor

Fresh Cut
June 2000

DALLAS -- Consumers want food to taste good and they have high expectations for fruits and vegetables. Those expectations, however, are even higher for fresh-cut produce, especially fruit, according to Mona Doyle, president of The Consumer Network, a Philadelphia-based research and consulting group.

Doyle and her group conducted a survey of 5,000 American shoppers especially for her presentation at the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association’s 13th Annual Conference during a workshop on flavor moderated by IFPA board member Leo Zanoni of Asgrow Vegetable Seeds.

"This is an especially exciting subject because as a consultant and researcher, I get excited for clients just because of what’s going to happen whenever two things happen at the same time," Doyle told the IFPA audience. "The two things are that there’s a confluence of a lot of things happening that all reinforce one another and there’s resonance so that consumers or business customers get excited about that you’re talking about and the subject resonates with them. And when those two things come together, you have a powerful business opportunity. Flavor really is an opportunity."

Flavor "really has a lot of selling power," according to Doyle. Consumers today have wider experience with flavor varieties in all kinds of food "across the board" and more affluent consumers are paying more for more flavor in a lot of food categories.

"The latest study now says about 30 percent of American consumers are buying organic foods some of the time," Doyle continued. "The numbers are changing, but the percent of that 30 percent that is recognizing and actually acting on the taste advantage of organics is kind of small, but growing. That number is up to 50 percent. The people who are buying organics are saying and are being toild that one of the reasons to buy orgnanic is that yo get a better flavor experience. And those people who are seeing it or have been told believe it."

Flavor is also becoming more important to Americans who patronize white tablecloth restaurants where they are increasing the variety of flavors they experience and to those who have been eating too well and who now need to diet, according to Doyle.

"As we get fatter and fatter, there are more dieters," she reported to her audience. "Whether they’re trying to bust their sugar or bust their fat, they are looking for other sources of flavor because that’s the craving. You don’t want to get flavor through the salad dressing when your head is on getting the flavor through something that is not fattening, which is the product you guys deliver.

"You have to look at yourself as part of this picture where flavor knowledge and flavor purchasing decisions are happening -- sometimes exponentially. If you look at the coffee industry which was totally sluggish until flavored varieties and lattes and capuccinos came along, Americans started drinking all kinds of coffee with better tastes. And they’re willing to pay, instead of 50 cents, $2.50 and $3.00. And the younger you are the more you’re willing to pay. You really have all these categories where flavor is exploding."

Flavor means both health and pleasure to consumers, Doyle pointed out, especially in fruits and vegetables.

"It’s not just that it’s better, but consumers have gotten the messagethat if it has more flavor -- it’s not like ice cream where the reverse is true -- with your product, if you have more flavor, the message is it’s better for you. With steak, it’s absolutely the reverse. Consumers have painfully learned that a choice or prime steak is probably the worst thing they could eat. And they’ve really begun to say, ‘The heck with it, we’re going to eat it anyway, because we need it," and it’s a quality of life issue for them. But they feel guilty every time they eat it.

"When you deliver something with more flavor, though, it’s an entirely different thing. The more flavor you provide for me, the healthier I feel I’m being and I can just guzzle it up if it’s really flavorful."

It’s only logical to assume that consumers don’t care as much about the flavor of salad ingredients because they smother them in salad dressing, but Doyle’s study revealed consumers want the vegetables in their salads to be just as delicious as other produce items they enjoy.

Eighty percent of the consumers Doyl surveyed soundly disagreed with the statement that "flavor is not important for salad vegetables because you get flavor from the dressing."

"They said the flavor should be in the vegetables themselves for a lot of reasons," she reported. "One is that we wouldn’t have to eat as much dressing."

Almost 90 percent of the consumers Doyle surveyed said they would buy more fruit if they could be sure it would have a lot of flavor.

"Most consumers agreed flavor is especially important to fresh-cut fruits because they’re ready to eat at once," she continued. "Consumers are not always consistent, but this is the beliefe, suggesting that the expectation with fresh-cut fruit is even higher for flavor than for just buying bulk fruits.

"And what surprised me a little -- maybe because I didn’t really learn to eat vegetables besides peas and spinach until I was old -- was that it was pretty universal that consumers agreed flavor is very important in fresh-cut veggies, too, because they are ready to eat."

Based upon her experience with the consumer survey, Doyle asserted there is a great sales opportunity waiting for anyone who can guarantee flavor in fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. "Whether it’s by branding or by special claims or whatever, that opportunity is there to sell more," she reasoned. "People are getting fruit that has no taste and it happens much too often. More than 60 percent of the people we surveyed agreed this is a problem.

"The value of a flavor promise is very high. Two-thirds of the consumers we surveyed said they have made produce brand decisions based on flavor expectations or experience. So they’re saying the reason they buy the brand is the flavor and quality spectrum. Clearly, those two things sort of came together for a lot of the consumers."

Doyle’s surveyors also asked consumers if they had any complaints about fresh-cut produce. They listed such disappointments as packaged salads with bitter taste, oranges with sour taste, grapefruit that are too tart and disappointment with a number of other items such as strawberries, melons, apples, stone fruits, carrots, corn, cucumbers and, of course, tomatoes.

Doyle’s group asked consumers how important flavor was for a specific produce item and then asked them how good their experience with that item has been. The resuls is what she called a "flavor gap" between what consumers expect and what they actually get.

"Tomatoes have the biggest gap," she announced. "It was 50 percent. That means that 50 percent of the time they are not getting tomatoes that meet their expectations for what they buy in the store and what a tomato should taste like.

"The thing that really surprised me was how often people don’t get their expectations met. There’s a high number who believe -- whether or not you can deliver it -- that fresh-cut ought to have more flavor. It’s not just convenience. There’s a special opportunity for you. Those big gap areas are oranges, peaches, apples, berries, grapes, pineapple and the gap for melons is huge. Melons are actually second only to tomatoes in terms of the size of the gap. It was 37 percent."

The flavor gap for vegetables was not generally as high as for fruit, according to Doyle’s consumer survey, however, she was surprised to find a significant shortfall between expectations and reality in packaged salads.

"The gap for packaged salads was 38 percent in the worst case and 27 percent overall," she said. "And there’s another opportunity that I would never have suspected and that’s fresh corn. Consumers feel when they buy fresh corn, the disappointment is there. I think there is a real opportunity there for corn if it is really going to taste good and I can just pop it in the microwave. This shortfall suggests consumers would try it."

While consumers generally expressed disappointment in such salad bar items as avocadoes, cucumbers, string beans and asparagus, there were other vegetables that rarely, if every, disappoint. They include: mushrooms, broccoli, onions, cauliflower, peppers and celery.

Doyle concluded her remarks by mentioning a grocery store in Boca Raton, Florida, where the owners have learned the secret of capitalizing on the flavors, smells and colors of fresh produce to sell more of it.

"It is a single store operation called The Boys," she reported. "If you’ve never been there, I recommend that you stop if you have the opportunity and watch the consumers filling huge shopping carts with produce and just having a ball doing it, eating their way through the store.

"The Boys are really brilliant merchants. They are grilling vegetables in the store. It creates a fabulous aroma. People buy whatever they see in the grill pot. First of all, it’s gorgeous. The green of the pepper, next to the red of the pepper is all enhanced by cooking and sort of slicked over with a little olive oil. It’s eye-watering and it has a dramatic impact on the way people buy because it adds nose as well as flavor. You don’t have to pick it up and smell it. It is there, the aromas of the stuff is just going around. So I think there are tremendous opportunities there."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

IFPA Show Report: What MAP Can and Cannot Do for You

Fresh Cut
June 2000

DALLAS—The first letter in MAP doesn’t stand for "magic," according to two experts who spoke at the 13th annual conference of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association March 10. Modified atmosphere packaging is definitely no panacea for quality issues in fresh-cut produce.

In fact, statistics show that MAP can’t possibly right more than 20 percent of the wrongs in fresh-cut quality, since 80 percent of them are related to temperature abuse.

"MAP can’t replace good temperature control," said Dr. Elizabeth Marston of E.V. Marston & Associates. "It’s the 80/20 rule for fresh-cut produce preservation. Eighty percent of quality issues in produce are caused by temperature. Only 20 percent are impacted by packaging."

Marston joined Dr. Jim Gorny, recently named IFPA’s technical director, in a conference workshop focusing on what processors can and cannot expect MAP to do for their products. Nicholas DaCosta of Apio, Inc. moderated the session, pointing out that, at its best, MAP can extend shelf life, help keep products safe, and preserve quality.

Both Marston and Gorny agreed, but cautioned the audience that packaging technology alone is not a silver bullet that will guarantee a quality product for end users.

"Why use MAP?" Gorny asked the audience. "The first thing out of everybody’s mouth is ‘increased shelf life.’"

Marston pointed out MAP helps extend shelf life and product quality by controlling respiration rates, controlling moisture loss (in some cases), controlling discoloration, reducing susceptibility to chill injury and controlling growth of some microbes.

What MAP cannot do, however, is take the place of good temperature control, turn poor quality produce into better quality, prevent discoloration, prevent growth of spoilage microbes or pathogens or prevent chill injury.

She defined MAP as the process of selecting permeable films that work with the natural respiration of the product to create the desired atmosphere in the package with or without gas flushing.

"Essentially what you’re doing then is setting up an atmosphere inside the package that will extend the quality and shelf life of your product," she explained. "The goals of MAP are consistent quality delivery, extended shelf life, good quality and product safety. We want to extend the marketing range for these products."

To develop the proper MAP system for a specific produce item, Marston recommended asking several questions.

"What is the desired oxygen and carbon dioxide levels you need in that package to control the atmosphere?" she queried. "What package design are you going to use? Is it flexible or it rigid? What are your shelf life expectations? What temperatures do you expect that product to see during storage and shipment?"

Answers to many of those questions can be found in scientific literature available from both universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Marston pointed out, noting that respiration rate can be calculated using an equation that quantifies the oxygen consumed by produce when metabolizing carbohydrates. By-products of respiration are carbon dioxide, water and heat.

Temperature is an important part of the equation because respiration increases dramatically as temperature rises. A given produce item will need more than twice the permeability at 10°C as it would at 4°C, she said. She cautioned that many recommendations for specific produce items are written for whole, as opposed to fresh-cut, produce.

"For example, look at lettuce," she explained. "The recommendation is for an atmosphere of 1 percent to 5 percent oxygen and less than half a percent CO2. Everybody knows lettuce should not have added oxygen in the atmosphere. We know at 1.5 percent oxygen we’re going to get pinking of chopped lettuce."

She recommended 1 percent to 1.5 percent oxygen and about 8 percent CO2 for packaged lettuce, pointing out that high CO2 content can cause sensory problems if it creates anaerobic conditions in the bag.

"High CO2 also caused package puffing, which is very undesirable from an aesthetic point of view," Marston continued. "So you have to worry not only about oxygen but also about CO2, too."

The respiratory quotient (RQ) of a produce item is the amount of CO2 it produces divided by the amount of oxygen it consumes during respiration, Marston told her listeners.

"An RQ of one or less indicates aerobic metabolism," she noted. "And that’s what we want to keep in that package, We want to make it so we still have our oxygen for aerobic metabolism."

Demonstrating the calculations that can be used to determine the right film permeability for specific produce applications, Marston also noted that permeable film isn’t the best solution for every packaging application. High respiring produce items such as broccoli, asparagus or spinach often require packaging materials that allow greater amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide to pass in and out of the package.

The answer for those types of products is that has been microperforated by laser or mechanical means.

"If you have perforations throughout the entire web, the disadvantage is that when you pack these products next to each other in a carton, you will occlude some of the perforations and that, of course reduced the OTR of the film," she explained. "As an alternative, you can place the perforations in an identifiable small area in the upper portion of the package or in an area you know is not going to be occluded."

Because it extends produce shelf life, modified atmosphere packaging enables processors to deliver their products to a larger area, according to Gorny.

"MAP reduces the respiration rate of the product," he explained. "It slows ripening and the aging processes. If there were to be pigment degradation, it would be slowed. It slows vitamin degradation, softening and toughening and can also slow browning reactions. You can also suppress many of the spoilage organisms, like molds, with high carbon dioxide levels. You need to ask yourself, ‘What benefits do I want to derive?’ before you start designing a package. We talk a lot about equilibrium in the package. You need to ask yourself, ‘What atmosphere will give me benefits?’"

There is an optimal atmosphere, or "window of opportunity," for each product, Gorny said. If products are packaged outside their optimal range, they are in what he called "the danger zone."

"You really need to ask yourself what atmosphere will do the least to the produce?" he continued. "With fermentation, products are actually starting to give off off-flavors and odors like ethanol, acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate. You can actually carbonate the product with the wrong atmosphere. I’ve actually seen cantaloupe cubes that have been in such a high carbon dioxide atmosphere that, if you squeeze them, bubbles come out of them, just like a carbonated beverage.

"Be familiar with where the danger zones are. If anyone’s ever held broccoli in an anaerobic package, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you get below about 2 percent or 1 percent oxygen, you begin to smell that product well before you find out where it is."

Gorny, too, emphasized the importance of maintaining packaged produce at the proper temperature. Packaging technology can deliver extended shelf life, but consistently lower temperatures, irrespective of whether the product is packed in MAP or air, will deliver longer shelf life.

"Temperature is really the key issue here," Gorny added. "The other key issue is that if you’re at the wrong temperature—68 degrees on the store shelf rather than 32 degrees—it can actually hurt you. It can actually accelerate the deterioration of the product. It is really critical to know what temperatures your product is being subjected to during distribution and marketing."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Fresh Sliced Apples: Waiting to Boom?

Fresh Cut
June 2000

WENATCHEE, Wash.—If recent market research reported by the Washington Apple Commission is any indication, fresh-cut apple slices are a boom waiting to happen once they can be made available to consumers.

Welcome Sauer, new business development director for the Washington Apple Commission, has announced the results of three separate studies that give different takes on how consumers will likely respond to fresh sliced apples if they become available.

In the first study, C.A. Walker & Associates interviewed about 400 consumers, 100 each in Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. They asked each consumer to sample apple slices, inspect three kinds of packages and voice their opinions about the experience. Apples for the test were sliced about a week prior to sampling and treated with NatureSeal, Mantrose-Haeuser’s natural anti-browning agent. Interviewers did not tell consumers when the apples were cut.

Consumer response to this relatively untried fresh-cut fruit product was more than adequate to trigger a new product introduction, according to Sauer. From a researcher’s point of view, sliced apples look like a slam dunk.

"Eighty-four percent of the consumers sampling the product said they either definitely or probably would buy these apples," Sauer reports. "Fifty-seven percent gave the samples their absolute highest score, saying they would definitely buy sliced apples.

Encouraging Response
"As a product developer, I’d hope for scores of 70 percent of the people saying definitely or probably, yet we got 84 percent. I’d also hope for 35 percent of the people giving it the highest score, saying they definitely would buy.

"Ninety-six percent of the consumers who tried the product said it either exceeded or met their expectations. Thirty-eight percent said it exceeded their expectations."

Judging from the survey results, the same qualities that make fresh apples one of the nation’s most popular fruits also make fresh-cut apples largely popular with consumers who taste them.

"Between 89 and 97 percent of the consumers who rated the product basically liked the flavor, texture, aroma and freshness of the product," Sauer continues. "They didn’t know what they were tasting. They didn’t know how old they were. We just offered them some and then asked them a series of questions."

According to survey results, fresh-cut apple sales do not appear destined to cannibalize sales of other apples from bulk displays at retail. Forty-one percent of respondents said their purchases of sliced apples would be in addition to the fresh apples they already buy.

Even the concept of slices of fresh apples packaged in bags or clamshells proved to be an easy one for consumers to digest, according to the study results. Getting their attention early when introducing such products should be relatively simple.

As Simple as Sliced Apples
"Ninety-four percent of the people, when asked if there was anything about this concept that was confusing or hard to believe, said, ‘No,’" Sauer explains. "And 86 percent of the people went through the entire interview without asking about chemicals or preservatives or anything like that."

Sliced apples may just be the perfect healthful snack, according to Sauer. He calls them a "guilt-free" answer to between-meal snacking.

"Eighty-seven percent of the people said this is a product which would be used as between-meal snacks," he continues. "Eighty-two percent said it would be kept in the refrigerator as grab-and-go snacks.

"Of those adult shoppers whom we interviewed who had children in the home, when asked who in their home would eat this product, 100 percent said, ‘My children’ and 91 percent said, ‘Me.’"

Recalling the boom in carrot consumption brought about by the introduction of cut-and-peeled carrots in the late ‘80s, Sauer says the results of the apple commission’s survey indicate there could also be a boom in the apple industry with sliced product.

"I think there might be some parallels for apples," he predicts. "So we did a little bench marking. We asked about their baby peeled carrot usage and we asked how much they believe they would pay for apple slices.

Consumers Willing to Buy
"On a per-pound basis, consumers gave us a price they say they currently pay for baby peeled carrots and price they said they would be willing to pay for apple slices. The price per pound they said they would be willing to pay for apple slices was 50 percent higher than the price for baby peeled carrots."

Pack sizes introduced during the survey were a 12-ounce clamshell, a 12-ounce bag, and a six-ounce bag. Consumers expected to pay about $1.95 for the 12-ounce bag, but responses ranged from 97 cents to about $3.00. That compares to about $1.73 they reported they pay for pay for 1-pound baby peeled carrots. Consumers expected to pay 31 cents more for apples in the clamshell than in the bag.

Survey respondents said they were equally as likely to buy the bag as the tray, yet the tray scored significantly higher than the bag in a number of ways that suggest consumers perceive rigid trays in a better light than bags as a container for apple slices. Consumers rated trays higher on:

Appealing with Peels
Consumers in the survey seemed choosy about some product specifications and unconcerned about others. For instance, a majority of consumers interviewed preferred peels on their apple slices as opposed to apple slices with peels removed. The size of an apple slice, however, did not seem to matter. The test included two different sizes of slices and 90 percent of respondents rated them both "just right."

Consumers definitely voiced preferences for portion size and the message is to offer more than one, according to the survey. About 80 percent of respondents said the 12-ounce portion size is "just right," while 11 percent thought it was too large. Sixty-six percent of respondents called the 6-ounce bag "just right," while 28 percent said it is too small.

The survey asked consumers about variety preferences and they voiced their preferences, in order of popularity, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, McIntosh and Golden Delicious. Gala and Fuji ranked high in Los Angeles and Granny Smith and McIntosh ranked high in Boston. According to Sauer, these preferences parallel the regional apple variety preferences seen for whole apples.

In addition to the four-city survey, the apple commission has also recently conducted a food show survey in New Orleans and a school foodservice test in Florida, according to Sauer.

A Boom Like Carrots?
"I took the opportunity to conduct a hidden-observer test at the New Orleans Home and Garden Show at the end of March," he reports. "We found a neutral location in Winn-Dixie’s exhibit area and placed a plate of baby peeled carrots and a plate of apple slices side by side. We mounded them high and kept them full with no labels or anything. We just allowed consumers to find the plates and sample the products.

"We hid in the garden center with a clipboard and observed what people picked up first, how many of each they picked up and whether they were males or females, adults or children.

"We watched 312 people find the display and take samples. Of those, 70 percent first picked up apples and 30 percent first picked up carrots. Sixty-seven percent picked up only apples and 27 percent picked up only carrots. So more than two to one, consumers picked up the apple slices when the choice was made freely available side by side with baby carrots. What that says is there’s a good potential for apple slices as a snack that scores very well with a product we already know is successful and well used."

The third test was conducted with a Florida school district where some cafeterias put sliced apples on their a la carte lunch lines instead of whole apples.

Students Buy 80 Percent More
"In half their schools, in place of the apple basket, the school offered sliced apples—one apple’s worth of sliced apples per plate," Sauer explains. "They tracked their apple sales for the month previous to the test and for the month during the test in each school. They found schools that offered apple slices sold 80 percent more apples than they had in the previous month and 80 percent more than the control schools that didn’t offer sliced apples at all.

"Basically the short way to say that is that apple sales increased 80 percent when the schools offered sliced apples. In the area of foodservice apples have not penetrated with as much depth as we would like. Now, with the possibility of apple slices, we can have a round peg in a round hole. Apples now fit in foodservice.

"Think of every salad bar in the country and how we can now put apples out there. Think of every banquet tray in these hotels where we go to conventions. Think of hors d’oeuvres trays, party trays, church socials and other events where they now have carrot and celery sticks. Now they can have apples on them, too."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Perfecting Fresh-cut Apples

Fresh Cut
June 2000

Fresh-cut apples are not an easy product to perfect, but several companies have quietly found markets for fresh sliced apples and others are testing the water.

The difficulty lies in the tendency for fresh apples to brown quickly after slicing when exposed to air. Some companies have used proprietary packaging technology to stave off browning and achieve adequate shelf life while others have used additives such as vitamin C or other natural products.

Farmington Fresh of Stockton, California, uses a patented process for slicing and packaging its fresh sliced apples in breathable bags, under near-sterile conditions at very low temperatures to achieve a 14-day shelf life, according to David Rajkovich, partner and treasurer at the company. The system inhibits natural enzymatic browning caused when apples are exposed to oxygen.

"Farmington Fresh is a major shipper of northern California apples, pears and cherries," Rajkovich explains. "We recently introduced ‘Sweet Apple Bites,’ a snack pack of fresh sliced California Fuji and Granny Smith apples with no preservatives or additives."

He says the company has been marketing fresh-cut Fujis and Granny Smiths since 1998 under the registered name "Sweet Apple Bites." Currently Farmington Fresh offers a 3.5-ounce snack pack for retail, a 2-ounce pack for foodservice and a new 5-pound foodservice pack of peeled and sliced apples.

Unique Products
"The consumer packs are being sold at retail grocery store chains," Rajkovich continues. "And the 5-pound foodservice pack is being marketed through some foodservice distributors including Sysco and Davis Lay Food Service Distributors here in northern California that is taking it to restaurants, hospitals and school districts. It’s being accepted very well.

"Our product is unique in that it has no preservatives on it and we’re able to maintain the texture and flavor of a fresh apple in this value-added form throughout the 14-day shelf life. With a lot of products that have preservatives, the apple begins to break down. It’s not as crunchy. Ours does maintain the pressure, which is how you measure firmness of an apple. It maintains that crunch all the way through the shelf life."

At retail, Rajkovich says the company is using dedicated coolers to display fresh-cut apple products in conspicuous places to encourage consumers to buy.

"This product must be maintained below 40 degrees and we find a lot of these open coolers are not able to do that," he reports. "So we have these enclosed display coolers with a glass door that can maintain that temperature. The cooler calls attention to the product. We market the snack packs in 5-pack punnets, little plastic trays with netting over them. They each come with either a caramel or peanut butter dip. It’s real popular with kids. It’s a great product and we think it has a bright future ahead of it."

A Foodservice Niche
On the other side of the continent, at Nature’s Pleasures LLC in Wolcott, New York, Jeff Cahoon says his fresh-cut apple products have found their niche in foodservice, but he’s also working at getting things going at retail.

"We are branding our own retail now," Cahoon says. "We just started that maybe two months ago. We package our own caramel here. We’re selling that separately and we’re selling an apple/caramel product as well."

Cahoon has been doing fresh-cut apples since 1997 when he built a plant near Cahoon Farms, his family’s apple growing and processing operation. Founded in the early 1940s by his grandfather, the farm raises about 2500 acres of apples and other fresh fruits, processing millions of pounds of frozen apples each year, as well as dried blueberries, cranberries, cherries and apples.

Cahoon started with a variety of retail packs and eventually began packaging a line of retail apple snack packs with dips for a major West Coast processor and marketer. The company eventually discontinued the line and Nature’s Pleasures turned to the foodservice arena while regrouping for another assault on retail.

"We knew retail was still a good idea, but it took us a long time to do our packaging and art work," Cahoon remembers. "We wanted to change a lot of things and we have a different product now. We’ve improved our process and put more money into our plant. We’re investigating a private label ‘lunchable’-type item and we’re looking at another private label apple item."

Focus on Schools
Turning toward foodservice, however, Natures Pleasures developed a 2.4-ounce bag of sliced apples for school, health care and other foodservice customers that currently makes up 90 percent of the company’s fresh-cut apple business, according to Cahoon.

"There’s a big market for foodservice for schools and it’s been really good to us," Cahoon says. "Geographically, we’re located in the heavily populated New England/New York area, so we have a little bit of an advantage there because we have 30 million people here less than six hours away from us. Fifteen of the top 40 schools in spending are not too far away from us. Our school snack packs meet the half-cup requirement for fruit for the kids."

Cahoon employs licensed packaging technology called MapTek Fresh that uses modified atmosphere and vitamin C to extend shelf life and delay browning. The technology gives his products 16-21 days of shelf life, depending upon the product and its application.

Kyle O’Brien of Marcus Food Products, Inc., Rochester, New York, handles marketing of Nature’s Pleasures products for foodservice and says sales growth to schools has been "tremendous."

"It took off like we had hoped," he reports. "We’re shipping truckload volumes all over the East Coast for the schools. They really like it. We got into the baby carrot business, too, and we’re doing a Nature’s Pleasures label baby carrot pack."

New Market Entry
In Wenatchee, Washington, Fresh Products Northwest has completed a fresh-cut apple processing facility and is launching its new products, according to Tony Freytag, who is general manager of the new company formed by Naumes Inc. of Medford, Oregon, and Dovex Corporation of Wenatchee, Washington.

Freytag says the company’s apple products will have a shelf life of about 21 days, thanks to a powder called NatureSeal, that is a patented blend of vitamins and minerals manufactured by Mantrose-Haeuser Company, Inc., of Westport, Connecticut. Mixed with water, NatureSeal makes an anti-browning agent that potentially could extend the shelf life of fresh sliced apples even longer than three weeks.

"We actually feel we can go longer than three weeks, but we’re not totally comfortable with it yet," Freytag said. "We’ve really tried to extend it. We also know the quality of the fruit going in is so very important. I think a lot of people have sort of looked at this and said, ‘Oh, gee, we can take our cull apples and use them.’ Well, it’s like computers: ‘garbage in; garbage out.’"

Freytag says the company has established a set of quality control standards for selecting suitable apples for slicing. He says the company will look at pressure or firmness, starches, sugars and other quality measures before procuring product. They will start with fruit taken from controlled atmosphere in Washington and are also considering imported fruit, if it can meet their standards.

"This is not a product that you can be in the market this week and out of the market next week," Freytag asserts. "It’s got to be a consistent, day-to-day effort. I use the term ‘bulletproof,’ because that’s what the consumer is going to demand. Not only is quality going to be important, but the consistency of the quality day in, day out, 365 days a year is going to be absolutely imperative."

Freytag, who recently took a trip to the East Coast, said prospects for sliced apples at retail look promising.

"We’re very excited," he said. "And, judging by what the retailers said last week, they are too."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

IFPA Report: What Does the Consumer Think?

Fresh Cut
June 2000

by Lorri Koster, IFPA Chairman
ProduceOnline.com

I recently enrolled my son in a "Little Critters" preschool class where he engages in the youthful endeavors of finger painting, singing songs and exploring nature. When I went to pick him up one day, I thought it would be nice to bring a carton of fresh-cut vegetables to the class so the mommies, daddies and teachers could take a bag home for dinner.

As my son and I stood by the door handing out a bag of vegetable medley and a cookbook to each departing family, I was enthralled by the number of different terms this group of consumers, all from the same demographic, were using to describe the product.

"Oh, my son just loves these packaged veggies," commented one mom while another added, "These vegetables in a bag are so easy to use."

Others said, "Our family eats this cleaned produce regularly." Yet another commented, "Pre-cut produce is the best. I serve packaged salads all the time."

We in the industry call the product fresh-cut produce (thus the name of our trade group, the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association). While a look at media archives may see the term pre-cut produce used in articles or industry speeches, fresh-cut has since become the industry standard. After all, you are currently reading Fresh Cut magazine.

Understanding Consumer Perceptions

But not to those consumers! Not one referred to the product as "fresh-cut." And that got me thinking…what are the true consumer perceptions of fresh-cut produce? How do most of them refer to the product? Do they purchase it regularly or only on special occasions?

Sure, many of these questions have been answered in individual focus groups, funded by individual processors and used individually to better compete in an extremely competitive marketplace. But there has not been a true, consumer behavioral research study focused solely on fresh-cut produce conducted by a third, independent party that is willing to provide that information to you, industry leaders.

The IFPA is launching our first of a series of studies called Fresh Focus. The 2000 study will focus on a Consumer Behavioral Research Study in the retail sector. The information will be the first of its kind, serving as an indispensable tool for your customers, peers and the media. Not only will it aid in product selection and marketing efforts, the survey will also provide quantitative data about the fresh-cut segment including market share, the customer profile and projected trends.

Industry-sponsored Study
Sponsors for Fresh Focus 200 are: buyproduce.com, Del Monte Fresh Produce NA, Golden Eagle Extrusions, Grimmway Farms, Growers Express, Mann Packing Company, Sealed Air Corporation/Cryovac and the Washington State Apple Commission. Vance Publishing is also an in-kind sponsor and will be underwriting the printing and binding of the study.

Members of the IFPA Marketing and Public Relations Committee conducted a thorough review of leading research firms and have chosen Axiom Research Company to oversee the project. Axiom is a full-service market research and strategic consulting firm located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Axiom has extensive experience in the design and conduct of qualitative and quantitative research regarding food. Axiom has worked with supermarkets, food companies and numerous associations serving the food industry.

The objective of the methodology behind the study is to examine consumer behavior and attitudes towards fresh-cut produce to:

The survey will be conducted via phone interviews with both users of fresh-cut produce and non-users alike. Results of the study will be available in August.

Perhaps it’s not a "bad" thing that consumers use different terms to reference the products produced in our industry. Is terminology really going to drive or hinder sales? After all, milk is milk, beef is beef, and we’re not selling widgets here. Diced, fresh pineapple is "cut fruit" and chopped lettuce in a bag really is a "packaged salad." What’s important is to identify the driving perceptions and concerns of fresh-cut produce users and non-users and to use that data to better our marketplace.

Editor’s note: Lorri A. Koster is currently chairman of the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association, a member of the Marketing and Public Relations Committee, and vice president of marketing for ProduceOnline.com.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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Snipped Fresh Produce: Mew Processor Finds Foodservice Niche

Fresh Cut
July 2000

BOSTON — Some say the fresh-cut category has "matured," but Joe Logrippo will tell you there’s still room for a processor who works hard, cuts any products his customers demand, and focuses on topnotch service.

Just 17 months ago, Logrippo’s uncle, along with a partner, established Snipped Fresh Produce, moving to nearby Chelsea from Boston’s Haymarket, the outdoor emporium where Joe’s grandfather established the family business 70 years ago. Joe, who also worked at Haymarket, now handles all sales for the new firm and is the third generation in his family to pursue a career in produce.

Fresh-cut processing was a natural transition. Customers who came to Haymarket for fresh fruits and vegetables were demanding more and more prepared items. Snipped Fresh was born in response to their changing needs.

"In the first place, there’s not a lot of people in Massachusetts doing this," Logrippo explains. "There are some guys who peel particular items like butternut squash, but there are only two other houses that carry the whole line from cole slaw to carrots.

"The fresh-cut operation began to evolve when one of the partners started doing fresh-cut on an experimental basis for customers who asked him to peel squash. Then it was sliced carrots and it just evolved into doing it on a full-scale basis. One of the buyers from a large foodservice distributor works in Haymarket and he began asking us to cut certain items for them because other houses couldn’t handle the demand."

No Shortage of Demand
There’s no shortage of demand for fresh-cut produce in New England’s teeming foodservice industry. Logrippo says Snipped Fresh specializes in onions, snipped green beans and peeled squash, but also cuts anything else customers need for their busy, short-handed kitchens. Eighty percent of the company’s business is foodservice.

"Nobody peels more onions in Massachusetts than we do," Logrippo announces. "We do a large volume of onions and I guess that’s due to the fact that nobody can do them like us at our price. Moreover they’re a pain. But onions are popular with cooks. Whenever you make a meat sauce or anything, the first thing is the onions. It gives it that smell and that flavor.

"We do onions for all the sausage vendors at Fenway Park. Everyone goes with canned peppers because they’re cheaper and they don’t really matter, but they say they use our fresh onions because that smell draws the people to the stand. That’s one of the things they look for is that good onion."

Another significant portion—about 15 percent—of the business is cutting vegetables for use as ingredients by food manufacturers, according to Logrippo.

"We slice onions by the ton for a company that uses them to pickle herring," he explains. "We have a dedicated onion line and we just installed many pieces of new equipment. We were doing everything by hand, even peeling onions."

Souping Up Onions
Logrippo serves several major ingredient customers who manufacture fresh soups for foodservice establishments on the East Coast. Soups and chowders are especially popular in the New England area and these particular customers purchase a total of about 10,000 pounds of fresh-cut onions each day.

"They are sick of peeling and cutting onions," he explains. "I offer to do all their onions at a great price. Our price is usually much lower than the cost would be for them to do it on their own. We’ve enjoyed a great relationship with these customers. They’ve all grown and we’ve grown with them. Now they give us other items like peeled carrots, peeled cucumbers, turnips and anything else you can possibly imagine.

"One chef makes an excellent gaspacho (cold soup). All the big foodservice operations from Maine down to Connecticut use these prepared soups. Everybody knows who makes them and everyone knows we’re the onion guys. We start at 3:00 in the morning and we’re done with all the onions by 5:00. They get them by 6:00."

In addition to onions, beans and squash, Snipped Fresh provides a complete line of other fresh-cut vegetables, including cole slaw, shucked corn, peeled sweet potatoes, stir-fry mixes, sliced and diced peppers, and even such labor-intensive items as peeled ginger or peeled pearl boiler onions.

Spreading "Sunshine"
Sometimes, providing a special item for one customer leads to additional business with another. Logrippo says a major foodservice distributor came to Snipped Fresh requesting a blend of snipped green beans, snipped yellow wax beans and julienne carrots that also had a dramatic effect on other customers who saw it.

"This company calls it their ‘sunshine bean blend,’" he reports. "It’s their signature blend. I do things like that for customers, but sometimes another broker will be in the house and he’ll take a look and say, ‘Where’d you get this?’ Then they’ll want to try it, too.

"You name it and we do it. We work well with our customers. If they need it, we’re there for them. We like to go the extra mile. I think that’s why we have such loyal customers."

Being available to meet customers’ needs when they arise is an important component of the formula for success at Snipped Fresh. Buyers know they can get help when they need it. Logrippo says he is always available if a customer needs an emergency delivery, even if the call comes on Sunday.

Satisfying faithful customers has paid big growth dividends for the fledgling company. Since Snipped Fresh was incorporated in January, 1999, Logrippo notes the company quickly reached a healthy sales level, then almost as quickly doubled that figure. Six to seven months later, the company had grown another 25 percent and the trend is continuing.

"Endless Possibilities"
"I think we’ve grown threefold," he says. "It just keeps going up. There are endless possibilities in this business. People get busier and they’re looking for a quicker and easier out. The busier people get, the better it is for us, because it means more work."

Uncompromising quality is one of the keys to maintaining satisfied customers. Logrippo goes to great lengths to be sure he delivers only the best product in the company’s refrigerated trucks.

"If I can’t give customers the best product, I’d rather not sell it to them at all," he explains. "We use a rolling drum machine that cuts the ends off our beans. We use only handpicked beans, mostly out of Florida. They’re always much stronger, a better bean. You may pay a little more money for them, but the end result is much better.

"I’ve had to cancel big orders with major foodservice distributors if I couldn’t get the best beans. It’s a tough give-up, but that’s the relationship we have. I’d rather give them an honest answer than try to pass a number two product by them. I could have done that, but they know when they call me for product that they’re going to get the absolute best."

Because of the nature of the products they manufacture, some ingredient customers are even concerned about such things as the flavor of a particular vegetable, according to Logrippo.

Particular about Flavor
"One soup customer demands only California carrots, because they’re much sweeter than carrots from other areas," he explains. "So we have to be cautious about what we buy. Onions can vary a lot in flavor because they come from Mexico, California, Colorado or even Oregon. Every one has a distinct flavor to it. The executive chef knows what his soup is going to taste like and he can say right away, ‘Well, gee, the onions are off. Where are you getting them from?’ They’re real tough on us, so we have to try extra hard to do a good job for them."

Getting the best also means getting the safest. While still a young company, Snipped Fresh has taken all steps necessary to establish a HACCP plan that includes proper worker hygiene practices, cleaning and sanitation, food safety inspections and documentation.

It’s been a whirlwind journey, but Logrippo says the new processor is prepared to supply even the most sophisticated players. He speaks of one large client as "pretty intimidating."
"I didn’t think we were going to be able to do it, but they were real impressed with our product and how we run our operation," he notes. "We’re in the Blue Book and the Red Book. We’re kosher certified and we have a HACCP plan that was written by a retired USDA inspector. Our customers can’t say enough about our HACCP plan. They brag about having us as a vendor now.

Running a Tight Ship
"We’ve done so much in such a short time. Our building is very small, only about 15,000 square feet. About 8,000 square feet of that is dedicated to processing, but we run a tight ship.

"Every square inch of this place is doing something and making money for us somehow. We have 35 guys working in the processing rooms and on the floor. Our customer who does pickled herring came to Boston for a seafood show and he couldn’t believe we put up their order out of this little place. Nothing goes to waste. When you have a small place, you have to make every inch count."

Running a tight ship contributes to one of the company’s most important strengths—low prices, he says. Customers know they can count on a reasonable price every day, along with top quality and excellent service.

"There’s not a lot of room for bargaining," Logrippo reasons. "We don’t low-ball anyone to try to steal a customer. We just keep our prices as low as we possibly can. That way they know if they want the best product at the lowest prices, here we are. They know we don’t bend a lot on our price, but we’re worth it because our customer service is unprecedented."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Italian Chef "Converts" to Fresh-cut

Fresh Cut
July 2000

NORWELL, Mass. — Food preparation has always been a matter of pride to Chef Christopher Treantafel of Trattoria San Pietro restaurant, but it’s difficult to trim meats and cut fresh vegetables in the kitchen when good help is scarce.

"Right now in Massachusetts, we have about a 3 percent unemployment rate," he laments. "Burger King is advertising at $9 an hour. It’s difficult to compete with that, being a family-owned operation."

Trattoria San Pietro is a fine dining destination, not only for discerning diners but also for other chefs and restaurant owners in the Boston area, according to Treantafel. Located between Boston and Cape Cod, the establishment offers natural, family-style Italian cuisine on its ever-changing menu.

A shortage of skilled labor is one thing, but before Chef Treantafel decided to bring in trimmed meats and fresh-cut vegetables, he wanted to be sure he would not be compromising the quality of his fine dishes.

"I was one of the last holdouts around here," he recalls. "We use lamb racks and right up until six months, maybe a year ago, I trimmed all my own racks and a fair amount of my own meats. But I no longer do that and I don’t have to spend as much time here as I used to.

"Conversion Process"
"Most definitely there was a conversion process there. You have this vanity thing that says if you’re not making it yourself, then you’re not going along with the rules that were set up many years ago. Going back in time, at one point, even the dishes on buffets were edible."

Vegetables play an important role in his cuisine and Chef Treantafel insisted on peeling and cutting them in-house until a thriving economy finally forced him to rethink his kitchen operation. He recently began bringing in fresh-cut produce from Shipped Fresh Produce in Chelsea to ease the burden on the staff—and on himself.

"First of all, the labor market being what it is, it’s just difficult to staff your kitchen at all," Treantafel explains. "I just started doing business with Snipped Fresh Produce a short time ago. I’ve been buying a lot of the snipped beans, cut peppers, sliced carrots, zucchini, chopped tomatoes and sliced onions. They offer a wide variety of intricately prepared fresh vegetables using no preservatives, additives or enhancements. It cuts my labor cost in the kitchen.

"It’s nice to come in and go from the refrigerator to the table in just a few minutes. Today I prepared 10 vegetable dishes—all of which are fairly intricate preparations—in about an hour and a half."

Veggies "Speak" for Themselves
Treantafel offers a wide variety of vegetable side dishes, salads and antipasto to his clientele. He uses added ingredients sparingly on vegetables to allow the flavor and freshness of each item in the dish to "come through and speak for itself."

Many of his vegetable dishes are part of the restaurant’s antipasto de la casa or appetizer menu. These dishes can change daily, depending upon the season. Some of the items offered at this writing were: Hot and sour sweet potatoes with balsamic vinegar; mixed peppers with calamata olives; sliced carrots and onions in sweet and sour vinegar; spicy zucchini and tomato; sliced mushrooms; roasted eggplant with basil; a pasta and chive fritata; and snipped gold wax beans and green beans in virgin olive oil with salt and pepper.

"I’m using a lot of different vegetables like rapini and other items," Chef Treantafel reports. "But the long and short of it is these prepared vegetables allow us to continue to be creative with less labor cost, less time in the kitchen. It gives me more free time to do what I like to do, ride my bike and spend time with my family."

Fresh-cut vegetables also offer a larger benefit to the entire foodservice industry, according to the chef.

Fresh Is Best
"I look at this as a big plus for the industry," he reasons. "With the pace of society today, not only are all these prepared products offered to the restaurant business, but they’re also offered to nursing homes and places that have traditionally used either canned or frozen vegetables. It gives these people, who are a captive audience, a chance to take advantage of the nutrition of a nice, fresh vegetable. I think that’s great."

Freshness and flavor are "absolutely" an important criterion for vegetable dishes at Trattoria San Pietro, according to Treantafel. He buys all his vegetables from Snipped Fresh, including pre-washed arugula and other greens for use in mesclun salads.

"On all of our entrees, we serve a roasted vegetable which consists of whatever is fresh and in season," he explains. "Right now we’re featuring asparagus, Yukon Gold potatoes, fiddlehead ferns, baby carrots and green and wax beans. They go into the flash 550-degree oven raw and six minutes later they come out and go right onto the plate. It’s just a nice array of fresh roasted vegetables. I prefer to use things fresh and in season here."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Retail Produce: A Changing Landscape

Fresh Cut
July 2000

YAKIMA, Wash. — America’s produce departments are growing faster than other sections of the supermarket, creating opportunities for suppliers who can adapt, according to Bryan Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association.

"The last 18 to 24 months has probably been the greatest period of change we’ve ever seen," Silbermann said April 13. "But in that tremendous time of change, there’s tremendous opportunity at the same time."

Silbermann made his remarks during a PMA Power Lunch held to brief PMA members about FreshTrack ’99, a study of produce buying and selling conducted by Cornell University’s Food Management Program.

The study revealed supermarket produce departments are growing faster than other departments in terms of sales, in terms of space allocated to produce, and in terms of the number of SKUs in the department, according to Silbermann.

The study broke supermarkets down by size. Small companies are those with less than $300 million in annual sales, medium companies have sales from $300 to $1.5 billion and large chains chalk up more than $1.5 billion in annual sales.

Produce Big for Small Chains
Produce represents a greater percentage of total store sales for smaller supermarkets than for larger companies with other divisions such as pharmacies, in-store banking or video rentals, according to Silbermann. In 1994, small supermarket chain produce sales were 18.3 percent of total store sales and, by 1999, that figure had grown to 20.9 percent according to FreshTrack. By 2004, small supermarkets are expected to derive about 24 percent of their sales from the produce department.

By contrast, annual produce sales accounted for just 8.6 percent of total store sales for the largest category of supermarket chains in 1994. By 1999, that figure had climbed to 9.4 percent and, by 2004, it is expected to be 10.8 percent, according to FreshTrack’s findings.

"With large chains, obviously, produce is still a very profitable part of their business," Silbermann reasoned. "Compared to other food categories, it’s becoming an even larger part, but, as this data shows, there is quite a difference between the role produce plays in the smaller supermarket versus the larger one. The overall average is getting close to 11.5 percent. If you take the entire universe of North American supermarkets, about 11.5 percent of total store sales come from produce."

Because produce is such a profitable portion of the supermarket business and plays such an important role in attracting consumers, the average size of supermarket produce departments is growing, too, according to the study.

Produce Departments Growing
"Back in 1994, an average produce department was about 2,629 square feet," Silbermann reported. "That’s average for all different sizes of chains. Currently, for 1999, the average is 3,632 square feet. By the year 2004, it’s predicted to get as high as 4,129 square feet. More square footage is being dedicated to produce.

"It’s interesting to view this by size of the supermarket. The growth for the period from 1994 to 2004 is expected to be 46 percent for small firms, 40 percent for mid-size firms and 29 percent for large firms. It’s not increasing quite as fast for the larger firms because they are putting in all those nonfood departments."

While growth in produce sales and square footage is good news, Silbermann offered some cautionary information, too. He noted the number of SKUs (stock keeping units) in the average produce department is growing rapidly, therefore putting pressure on individual items or categories to compete with others in the department.

"From 1960, when the average smaller supermarket chain had fewer than 200 SKUs, by 1990, that figure was up to 275. For a period in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, large supermarket chains outdistanced smaller companies in average number of SKUs in the produce department, but by 1994, the smaller companies essentially closed the gap, according to Silbermann.

Chains Compete for Variety
"Small supermarkets are just as competitive in terms of the numbers of items that are fighting for the space in that department," he explained. "The real reason larger supermarkets moved ahead in the early ‘90s was because of all the packaged salads. The larger chains are the ones who jumped on that category first and put in refrigerated units to handle it. Pretty soon the independents started to say, ‘Wait a minute, this salad category is going to be here for the long-term. We’d better get in.’"

As produce grows, however, most departments are undergoing what Silbermann called "compression of SKUs." He pointed out that new products are being introduced faster than square footage can grow and individual SKUs are being allocated less space as a result. In 1994, the average SKU in a typical produce department had 9.1 square feet of space. By 1999, that space was just 8.7 square feet. It is expected to go down to 8.3 square feet by 2004.

"In other words, every SKU is coming under increasing pressure to deliver sales performance and profit performance for the space it occupies in the department," Silbermann warned.

While produce is on an upward trend in terms of sales, space and SKUs, other sections of the average supermarket are not faring as well, according to Silbermann’s report.

Produce Is a High Point
"Meat was 24 percent of sales back in 1967," he reported. "In ’97, it was 13 percent and is predicted to go down to 11.6 percent by the year 2004 in the average supermarket."

Since 1967, dairy sales went from 11.1 percent of total store sales to 6.2 percent in 1997. Grocery foods, such as corn flakes and canned soup declined from 34.5 percent of total store sales in 1967 to 22.2 percent in 1997. During the same period, frozen foods are up slightly, and deli, bakery and seafood have come onto the scene and are expected to grow by 2004.

"Produce has gone from 7.6 percent of total supermarket sales in 1967 to 11.3 percent in 1997 and is predicted to go up to 14.5 percent by the year 2004," Silbermann noted. "Produce very clearly is the one department that is showing tremendous growth in terms of share of sales."

In addition to retail produce, the FreshTrack study also focused on supermarkets’ behind-the-scenes produce procurement and how it is being influenced by the trend toward consolidation among large chains.

Silbermann said the eight largest retail supermarket chains commanded about 26.5 percent of all U.S. food sales in 1929 and by 1994, their share of the market had grown to only 29 percent. By 1998, however, the top eight supermarket chains commanded 50 percent of all U.S. grocery sales and other mergers were in the wings.

The Big Get Bigger
"It’s closer to 60 percent now for the top eight chains if everything goes through the way it’s supposed to," Silbermann announced. "Clearly the big have gotten bigger. Now some people ask, ‘Is consolidation slowing?’ and my response is to look at AOL and Time-Warner or Ahold and U.S. Foodservice or Sysco and Freshpoint. This is the first time a retail chain in the United States has bought a foodservice distributor, which means an even greater blurring of the lines between retail and foodservice."

Produce suppliers should not panic, however, according to Silbermann. The FreshTrack study showed the number of actual buyers per firm increased from 1994 to 1999 and is expected to be even higher by 2004. On average, according to the study, regional buyers doubled from 2.3 in 1994 to 4.6 in 1999. Field buyers also doubled from 1.3 to 2.6 during the same period. The average for all firms surveyed went up from 5.8 in 1994 to 10.2 in 1999.

Buyers, however, have little concern for merchandising and promotion, according to Silbermann. Smaller retail chains average about one category manager while larger chains can average as many as 6.8 category managers in the produce department.

"The percent of firms that have somebody designated as a category manager was 67 percent for small chains and 83 percent for large firms," Silbermann explained. "Interestingly enough, according to the Supermarket News 2000 technology survey, the number one priority for top level supermarket executives this year is category management."

Direct Buys Increasing
The produce buying landscape is changing and those entities that do not provide value-added services may no longer serve a function in the industry, according to Silbermann.

"Wholesalers, most notably terminal market wholesalers, as well as large, independent regional wholesalers still represent an insurance policy for retailers," he pointed out. "Retailers do not want to see them go away. Brokers are adding services to boost their value in the buying business. The old image of a broker just being a broker is really no longer valid. They have to provide far more services than ever before. And buying direct from the grower/shipper continues to increase."

According to the FreshTrack study, supermarket chains buy about 6.8 percent of their produce grocery wholesalers, a figure that remained fairly constant between 1994 and 1999. Purchases through brokers, however, declined from 23.6 percent in 1994 to 18.1 percent in 1999. It is expected to slip to 13.5 percent by 2004.

Produce wholesalers, too, are losing a little ground, according to the study. They represented 32.4 percent of supermarket produce sales in 1994, 31.5 percent in 1999 and are predicted to handle about 28 percent of all supermarket produce sales by 2004.

Direct produce purchases from grower/shippers, however, are on the rise. In 1994, they were 36.1 percent of supermarket purchases and by 1999 had grown to 42.9 percent. By 2004, direct purchases from grower/shippers are expected to constitute 51 percent of all produce purchases by supermarket chains.

Spot Buying Fades
Direct produce purchases from grower/shippers represents 66 percent of all produce buys made by large supermarket chains, according to Silbermann.

The survey also showed spot buying is on the decline and contracts for produce purchases are on the rise.

"One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that the opportunity buy is fading," Silbermann reported. "What began with large items like bananas and then increasingly in things like packaged salads, is really moving toward contracts and long-term relationships."

Silbermann said retailers interviewed for the survey indicated they wanted consistent quality from their produce suppliers, consistent, on-time delivery, coding options, such as PLU or UPC coding, price protection when markets rise, and a large enough supply to fill a majority of the chain’s stores.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Nalo Farms: Hawaii's Niche Market for Specialty Greens

Fresh Cut
July 2000

Story and photos
by George Furukawa

Dean Okimoto never expected to be managing his father’s farm on the island of Oahu, let alone to be selling specialty baby greens to the top chefs on the island.

In 1983, when he returned to the farm in Waimanalo town, he started raising hydroponic lettuce, a crop wholesalers were not ready to accept. Struggling to stay afloat on the farm where his father had raised green onions, American Parsley and daikon (Japanese radish) since the early 1950s, it took him seven years to establish himself.

Then, a few years later, he met celebrity Chef Roy Yamaguchi and celebrity wine connoisseur Chuck Furuya and his fortunes took a dramatic turn. Yamaguchi, who owns and manages Roy’s restaurant in the affluent Hawaii Kai community, asked Okimoto to grow herbs for his popular eatery. The popular chef was so pleased with Nalo Farms’ product, he asked Okimoto to grow a special mix of baby greens consisting of 12 to 14 different greens and herbs.

Okimoto was enjoying newfound success, but Yamaguchi cautioned the grower not to rely exclusively on one client and invited Okimoto to accompany him at several product demonstrations during public events on Oahu to promoting the farm’s specialty greens.

People began contacting Nalo Farms and the product has sold itself, largely because of Yamaguchi and the perceived quality associated with his name and restaurant. The mantra about island-grown, fresh, mixed specialty greens and quality customer service voiced by Yamaguchi and Okimoto, has resonated with potential clients.

Sustained Growth
Today Nalo Farms can look back with pride at a 20 percent annual growth rate for the last five years and a client list that includes nearly 70 restaurants. The farm’s growth flies in the face of prolonged downturn in Hawaii’s economy. Many businesses have downsized or closed their doors permanently.

"We are still growing," Okimoto exclaims. "Every year, I think we are not going to grow anymore, but we continue to grow. It has been phenomenal. I am still amazed when people tell me how much they enjoy eating our product. I am also amazed we are able to market a product that costs more than a steak. People are looking for quality and are willing to pay for it."

Nalo Farms bases "freshness" on cutting product in the morning, chilling it in coolers and delivering it by late morning or early afternoon. Restaurants can serve it the same day for dinner and sometimes for lunch. Diners eat the product within 12 hours of harvest.

Vibrant demand means Okimoto is growing specialty greens on 2.5 acres of the 4.5-acre farm. He notes, "At any one time, we have 120 beds of crops growing. We are always growing something throughout the year. Our beds are made by hand, without the use of tractors. We are low-tech and labor-intensive.

"When I first started at this farm, my dad and I were the only ones here," Okimoto remembers. "We’ve doubled our staff in the last three years and now have seven full-time harvesters and one supervisor. I have another company, Local Island Fresh Edibles (LIFE) that does the deliveries. We buy produce from local farmers and market it through that company. It has five full-time and two part-time employees.

Sustainable Profits
"We spend about $10,000 to $15,000 a year on seeds alone. We are always looking for new seeds. We are one of only two farms here that produce yields of almost $250,000 per acre. If you are yielding $20,000 per acre, that is considered good and sustainable."

Nalo Farms is located at sea level where temperatures do not drop below 70 degrees. When temperatures fluctuate, Okimoto says the flavor of the crop becomes sweeter and subtler. More even temperatures at Nalo Farms mean his crop is spicier. Temperatures also influence the texture of the greens, he says.

"For example, this vegetable we grow is higher in vitamin C and folic acid," he reports. "It is directly related to weather here on the farm. Our temperatures this time of year are 70 to 88 degrees. The warmer it gets, like 76 degrees, the flavors become spicier.

"We grow 10 different kinds of greens, including Mizuna and baby spinach. We look for crops with a lot of color. We grow eight different kinds of lettuce, including red and green romaine and about 20 different kinds of herbs, including rosemary, thyme and basil. We do about 1,200 to 1,600 pounds of greens per week. We also work with three farmers on Maui we taught to grow for us."

Harvesters at Nalo Farms cut greens in a specific way, usually at 7 a.m. After cutting, they are cleaned, mixed and packaged by hand in plastic bags (for smaller volume clients) and crates (for larger volume clients), usually no later than 10 a.m. Everything is placed into coolers at 40 degrees and the first delivery leaves about that time. Each crate consists of eight to 10 pounds of product. Packaging does not require labeling or marking because product is delivered exclusively to restaurants.

A Family Operation
His mother makes some deliveries, his sister raises herbs, and his wife and daughter assist him at public events. "My dad, who is 82 years old, completely blind in one eye and cannot hear very well, goes out every morning and does most of the weeding for us in about half a day," Okimoto notes with pride.

"Potential customers are impressed that we still do things the old way, meaning labor-intensive and low-tech," Okimoto points out. "For us, being low-tech is a strong selling point, because customers can see what goes into the product. If we start producing 5,000 to 10,000 pounds a week, then we will have to mechanize our operation. But I feel we can control quality better with the system we have now. The bottom line for our customers is quality."

The farm delivers product in air-conditioned vans. Drivers can deliver to 15 or 20 restaurants in about 2½ hours. Usually, all greens are delivered within three hours. Okimoto has tasted his greens after three hours and says they retain their freshness.

Nalo Farms serves only two retail clients. He believes if his greens were available in markets, restaurants might consider them less desirable. Okimoto asserts Nalo Farms is on "the same wavelength" with many restaurants. Sunday is not a normal business day for the farm, yet, if a customer calls and wants product delivered, the client receives it.

Okimoto’s clientele include: Chef Roy Yamaguchi of Roy’s, Chef Hiroshi Fukui of L’Uraku, Chef Chai Chaowasaree of Chai’s Island Bistro and Singha Thai, and Chef Wayne Hirabayashi of Kahala Mandarin Oriental. To establish rapport and long-term relationships with clients, Okimoto offers product demonstrations to their staffs because he feels it is important for them to know his product. He encourages them to visit his farm. Staff people from Roy’s and Kahala Mandarin Oriental visit annually.

Definitely Not a Fad
"Roy Yamaguchi is marketing our product in San Francisco because he is opening a restaurant there," Okimoto points out. "He has confidence in our product because he knows it very well. We want chefs to come to the farm because they will always see something else they may want."

Nalo Farms is currently developing a micro greens mix. This year, the business is growing at slightly higher than 20 percent and he has been telling visitors that chefs are looking for other products besides baby greens.

"When I first started growing mixed greens, a lot of people thought this was a fad," he recalls. "But this crop is here to stay. For specialty greens, you have to look at the overall picture such as nutritional value, taste, how people accept it, and so forth. I feel this kind of crop is the wave of the future. We are looking at other specialty greens such as baby spinach.

"We do about $500,000 a year in business at Nalo Farms. Local Island Fresh Edibles, does about $1.5 million a year. A major goal for us is to build a new processing plant. Marketing and public relations are very important in this business. If someone is not satisfied with my product, I want that person to tell me about it first and I will make every effort to correct the problem.

"Our prices have actually dropped about 15 percent from five years ago, because we have found more efficient ways of doing things. For example, we used scissors to cut greens during harvest and it took about a half-hour for five pounds. Then we tried using blade sharp knives and workers were able to do five pounds in 10 minutes. We are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient because we benefit and customers benefit, too."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Island Chefs Hot for Greens

Fresh Cut
July 2000

by George Furukawa

Several Hawaii chefs who are clients of Nalo Farms have expressed their wholehearted support of the product by using it in assorted dishes at their restaurants. Here is a sampling of what they say:

Chef Chai Chaowasaree, Chai’s Island Bistro and Singha Thai: "Nalo Farms’ greens are a lot more intense and the shelf life is longer. I have been using Dean’s greens for a long time and I use it at both of my restaurants. I use a lot at Chai’s Island Bistro because of the kinds of dishes on our menu. I use Nalo Farms’ Baby Romaine and a lot of other products. I use his greens in my Zucchini Soufflé. I like working with Nalo Farms because they will grow what we request. Each week, we use more than 10 cases or about 50 pounds of Dean’s greens. We are open for lunch and dinner, so we use a lot of his greens."

Chef Hiroshi Fukui, L’Uraku: "His greens are very flavorful. Each variety of greens differs in flavor. When you mix it as Nalo greens salad, you do not need a lot of dressing, because the greens have a lot of flavor. His motto is to deliver in the morning, so we get it fresh. If they cut the greens in the morning, we get them by noon. So we get the greens fresh and they are also nutritious. We have different kinds of mixes – the Nalo Greens Salad, the Spicy Greens Salad, in which Dean mixes all the spicy greens for us, and the Tender Greens, which consists of a mix of tender, soft greens. He is willing to grow all kinds of mixed greens for the chefs. He makes Baby Spinach for our Spinach Salad. We serve that with shrimp. His greens also complement seafood dishes. I have been using Dean’s greens since L’Uraku opened four years ago. We use about 15 to 20 pounds of his mixed greens per week."

Chef Roy Yamaguchi, Roy’s: "I do not remember how long I have been using Dean’s greens, but it has been a long time. We use Nalo Farms’ mixed greens in our salads. We like to also sauté with them very lightly, so that it puts another dimension on the texture, and the different flavors that are evident, whether it is hot or cold. We use the greens in a lot of different ways. Roy’s focuses on the Asian flavors, so depending on the type of flavors we want from the greens, Dean has always been able to put a mixture together for us, so that it is spicy with a balance of softness and firmness with different colors and textures. We have always promoted the concept of freshness of products on our menu. I like the combination of flavors that are in Nalo Farms’ greens. I can go to Dean’s farm and ask him to put more firmness into the mixture of greens, or make it spicier, or more colorful, and he can mix and match it in a matter of seconds."

Chef Wayne Hirabayashi, Kahala Mandarin Oriental: "We order Dean’s greens the day before and I guess he goes out and harvests it that morning, cuts it, washes it and delivers it that day, fresh. I can tell him what I want in the mix, such as more of this or more of that. I also use his Baby Romaine, which is great for our Caesar Salad, and we do a baked Caesar Salad, which works well because it is really crisp and firm. What we do is bake the lettuce leaves so it holds up under the heat. We use his Mizuna (Japanese vegetable), which is always fresh, ready to go and consistent. I also use his Micro Greens, which are made up of Baby Greens that they cut, and are just starting to sprout, and the flavors are really intense. He also helps us out with training programs, in which he comes to the hotel and teaches the waiters and cooks about what he grows, why he grows it, how he grows it, what kind of fertilizer he uses, and so on. I use his Mizuna, Micro Greens and other products from Nalo Farms."

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Field Fresh Foods: Processor Sees Gold in Foodservice, Delis

Fresh Cut
August 2000

LOS ANGELES —Emelio Castañeda and Fritz Stelter originally launched Field Fresh Foods to supply food manufacturers with fresh-cut vegetables. Six years later, foodservice customers are buying nearly twice as much product as their original clientele.

"Our initial concept was to develop a really high-end product for food manufacturers. That was basically how we cut our teeth," Castañeda recalls. "Then we saw a market developing in foodservice and we started tapping into that business, as well as some specialty high-end retail items.

"Now our business has grown to about 60 percent foodservice, 34 percent food manufacturers, and the balance, about 6 percent, is high-end retail customers."

In order to meet the growing foodservice demand, Castañeda and Stelter relocated their processing operation to a larger facility in late 1999, giving them five times the physical capacity of their former processing plant.

"We talked to a number of our customers and requested input from them on what they’d like to see built into the plant, with HACCP and food safety at the top of everybody’s mind," Castañeda explains. "We spent the money putting features into this plant to enable us to have a very high level of food safety. All processing areas are equipped with epoxy flooring and FRP panels in the walls.

In-house Laboratory
"We have an on-site laboratory that has full capacity to do testing. Also, a lot of our systems are integrated into the computers and data goes right to where our QC people can get it out.

"Our head QC person has a master’s degree in microbiology. We have highly trained QC people and there’s a week of training for all entry-level production personnel, including a series of seminars on such things as GMPs and HACCP."

One food safety feature customers demanded was that of separating various areas of the plant from one another to prevent cross-contamination during handling, processing and packaging, according to Castañeda.

"Our customers like physical barriers," he continues. "Raw product is received in one area, processed in another room and packaged in a room with a hospital operating room air filtration system. It reduces the chance of contaminating the product with airborne bacteria, mold spores or what have you. We process onions in the same room as lettuce, but we peel and prepare them in a completely separate room with extraction fans that pull out airborne contaminants. Raw onions with peel on them don’t ever come in as far as our processing room. There are a lot of molds and yeast associated with onion peels."

A Tight Cold Chain
From receiving through shipping, produce is kept cold. In fact, the plant is equipped with excess refrigeration capacity to ensure that temperatures do not rise above target levels under any circumstances. The raw product cooler is designed to maintain a temperature of 40°F below zero. While that capacity is never used, it is available if needed, Castañeda says.

The investment required for refrigeration, sanitation, food safety precautions, and training may seem hard to justify because mishaps or recalls that never happen can’t be added to the bottom line, but the effort has paid off in other, more measurable ways, too, Castañeda asserts.

"With all these systems, we’ve seen our shelf life go up," he proclaims. "We’ve seen our microbiological counts go down. It’s a substantial expense to do all this. Just with the refrigeration, our electrical bills are substantial, but it’s a cost of doing business and, all in all, we’ve got a better product and better food safety."

Excellent quality is important in maintaining a competitive edge, according to Castañeda. While he and Stelter do not set out to compete with larger source processors, direct product comparisons are unavoidable in Southern California’s highly competitive marketplace.

Setting High Standards
"We set our standards very high," he explains. "You have the source processors that do a great job with lettuce, onions and carrots. Our products compete head-to-head with those products every day. Our customers don’t intentionally replace source items with our items. What we offer them, however, is all of the other specialty cuts and custom items. We have chains that are not willing to accept the standard three-way salads with chopped lettuce, romaine and carrots so they come to us.

"We have one customer, for instance, that doesn’t want to put shredded carrots in their salads. They want little carrot sticks. So they really can’t go to a source processor."

Field Fresh Foods boosts its competitive edge with flexibility and efficiency, according to Stelter, who handles company sales. Source processors typically process only high volume items. They don’t bother with smaller runs of custom products, he points out.

"We certainly do all the lettuce that people require, but we can also throw in these other items," Stelter explains. "We can do custom mixes where we give the customer a third green leaf, a third red leaf and a third romaine in their salads. We’re currently doing about 133 different items and cutting them about 2,000 different ways. That includes everything from basic shredded lettuce to coconut cups and coconut bowls for Las Vegas customers. One of the biggest keys to our success is flexibility. We’re so flexible we can do onions and lettuce at the same time."

A Handle on Details
Flexibility alone isn’t enough, according to the two entrepreneurs. In order to be competitive—and profitable—a processor must get a handle on the logistics, details and variables involved in processing so many low-volume items.

"We’ve spent a great deal of time and money on our efficiency and productivity," Castañeda points out. "We’ve got a lot of computers and we’ve spent a lot of money training our people. We track the tiniest details in our processing. People are out there constantly doing time and yield studies. If our yield on a certain product is off by a couple percentage points, our buyer is immediately informed and we are able to compensate and maintain a certain standard of quality and efficiency. Precise "

Knowing inputs and costs in detail aids in accurate, competitive pricing and keeps the company out of unintentional loss situations should variables fluctuate, according to Castañeda.

"By tracking all this, you get a really good feel for where you’re at and you get information to base your decisions on," he continues. "I don’t know how we’d do it without computers, because all of this is a tremendous amount of number crunching. We’ve developed this control system over the years and there’s a tremendous amount of detail in it. We’ve also got the MIS capacity to do whatever the customer requires.

Multiple MIS Systems
"With food safety we have a whole different system, logging data on everything from chlorine levels to pH levels—temperatures and all sorts of variables. So we have multiple information systems."

Once the company’s carefully processed product has been accurately and competitively priced, the next phase of the Field Fresh formula is 24-hour-a-day customer service, including timely distribution, according to Stelter and Castañeda.

"Everything is oriented toward customer service," Castañeda reasons. "We train our customer service people extensively. We have very high standards and our whole management team is compensated with bonuses based on customer service, distribution, food safety and other indicators.

"One of the key indicators we use is ‘service level.’ We track that level in terms of orders placed compared to orders delivered accurately and on time. We’re operating on a 99.8 percent service level. It’s difficult to maintain, but when there’s a problem on an order, everybody’s aware of it because that potentially costs them money."

Paying careful attention to detail pays off in terms of efficient use of raw product, according to Stelter. At the end of a typical day processing as many as 70 different items, the plant will likely have only 1200 pounds of overruns, a mere one or two percent of total product processed.

Two Areas of Growth
Stelter and Castañeda say they see two promising areas of growth for their operation in the future: Southern California’s diverse foodservice category; and emerging demand among upscale food retailers for deli home meal replacement items.

"A lot of the concept restaurants have been using fresh-cut to some degree, but now you’re seeing a lot of the ethnic restaurants experiencing growth and getting into it," Stelter explains. "They’re looking at realigning labor into areas that will save money. In our industry there are people in the building that make you money and there are people that cost you money. It’s the same thing in the restaurant. The busboy in the kitchen that’s washing dishes and prepping vegetables is costing you and the waiters and waitresses out in front are making you money. More and more people are catching onto that."

Upscale retail food chains, often with 16 to 20 stores, are another promising area of growth because consumers want flavorful, ready-to-eat items that are also perceived as healthful, according to Stelter.

"You have the delis in the grocery stores that are competing with the Boston Markets and other outlets for home meal replacements," he reasons. "So in a sense it’s a type of foodservice, but it could be considered food manufacturing as well, because we’ll sell them diced or sliced celery and diced red onions and they’ll make a seafood or a pasta salad with them. They’ll buy slab cut vegetables for grilled eggplant or grilled zucchini. We’ll have specific cuts like sliced diagonals and half moon cuts. These might be served chilled or taken home for the microwave.

"Two of our most popular items are special salads for these high-end delis. We have an edible flower salad we call ‘Blossom and Sprouts’ that comes with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Then we have the ‘China Kiss’ salad that has coconut, almonds, sprouts and romaine. It’s done with a miso dressing. Both of these are very popular, gourmet, high-end items.

"The whole industry is geared toward home meal replacements. Grocery stores are losing a ton of business to people who don’t go in to buy the groceries to make foods because they don’t have the time. That’s why you’re seeing the deli sections, in many cases, strategically located right next to the produce department, which is the highest profit center in the store. And it’s almost the largest section next to produce."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Food Safety from the Source

Fresh Cut
August 2000

SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Food safety begins at the source and the folks at PrimusLabs.com are working hard to help produce suppliers comply with good agricultural practices (GAPs) and other procedures to keep produce clean for end users.

Bill Schene, director of sales and marketing, says Primus is offering a variety of services via its web site, primuslabs.com, to help grower/shippers comply with standard food safety practices and be prepared for buyers who may require third party verification of their produce.

Creation of food safety manuals and self audits are available for free over the Internet at our web site, www.primuslabs.com," Schene reports. "Our Document Development Program makes it very easy for growers, shippers and packers to at least get a handle on their own food safety program.

"Any interested party can log on to our site and, by answering a series of questions, can develop a Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) manual for ranches and harvest crews, and/or a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) manual for packinghouses and coolers. The manuals include standard operating procedures.

"Once manuals have been created, they can be downloaded and printed out on any computer printer. In addition, the interested party can then conduct a self-audit. The audit will produce a score as well as corrective actions that can be taken to improve their score.

"The creation of these documents is a good first step for a company to take in addressing food safety concerns from the field through the packinghouse and storage. It is an excellent method of addressing food safety issues for a processor that is concerned about its supply of bulk product. A self-audit is an excellent way for a firm to prepare for a third party audit, which many buyers are requiring."

Schene says the downloadable documents are free of charge to interested parties.

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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SaladLand: The Gourmet Salad Specialists

Fresh Cut
September 2000

TORONTO — As consumer demand for healthy, convenient food grows, Shamim Karmali, president and owner of Saladland, has built a thriving business manufacturing and supplying gourmet salads and ready-to-serve meals to retailers and foodservice operators.

Shamim, an avid cook who has lived on three continents, bought Saladland about six years ago when it was primarily a supplier of salads to the retail sector. She added gourmet fresh salads and ready-to-serve meals to the mix and, in February 1999, moved into a new 12,000-square-foot plant.

"Sales have been growing," reports Azim, a former marketing executive with a Fortune 500 corporation who serves as vice president of sales. "In the past five years, we’ve grown about 500 percent. Currently our demand is split about 50/50 between retail and foodservice, but we see the biggest demand in the years ahead to be foodservice, although retail will continue to grow."

In order to satisfy a growing market, the Karmalis have built a federally registered (the Canadian equivalent of USDA-inspected) facility where they can meet all food safety and HACCP requirements.

Topnotch Facility
"We essentially took about a year to design the new plant. We made sure it met federal regulations," Azim Karmali explains. "We designed it to remove as many hazards and critical control points as possible from the product flow. We have a cold chain from receiving all the way to shipping. We designed the facility so there would be as few crossovers as possible.

"Our sanitation plans are in place. Our food safety and employee hygiene plans are in place. Our plan for material handling is in place. Now we’re going through our HACCP prerequisites."

On-the-go lifestyles are changing the way people eat and also the way they buy salads, according to Azim. Single-serve grab-and-go meals and salads are gaining popularity as consumers seek out quicker meal solutions and cafeterias, delis and other foodservice operations look for efficient, economical ways to offer these to customers.

"We see the grab-and-go market really shooting up," he says. "Essentially we’re talking about portions available not only at traditional retail outlets such as grocery stores, but at convenience stores. You see them at your gas station outlets and your coffee shops. When people come in for a quick bite, they want something healthy. They’ll pick up a salad and a coffee rather than a bagel and coffee.

"This demand for convenience is not at the expense of quality. In fact, consumers are demanding healthier, better quality and fresher products. That is our strength."

Customers Want Consistency
Rather than assembling such meals and salads on the premises, operators are finding it is better to outsource them to facilities such as Saladland, Karmali continues.

"Our customers are finding it’s very much based on who’s making the salads," he reasons. "A creative chef or kitchen hand cuts up something, puts it on plates, wraps it up and puts it out. When that person either moves or something, then either there is nothing or something different there for customers to buy.

"Hospitals or cafeterias want consistency and they want quality. They also want to be assured it is being done in a proper sanitary fashion. We offer those things."

The bulk of Saladland’s business lies in supplying fresh, upscale salads and meals of all kinds to supermarkets and foodservice operators, according to Karmali. Rather than turning out high-volume salads like cole slaw and potato salad, the company focuses on a wide variety (200 at last count) of tasty combinations that can add appeal to a menu and boost profits for the operator.

"Our forte is the variety and quality of products we offer," he explains. "In a day’s production run, we may do 70 to 75 salads of different types. It may require 30 types of vegetables cut in different ways. When that’s all done and batched up, it goes to the prep or mixing area. We have a standard production list of about 100 salads and we also do custom recipes for hospitals, airlines and other customers. These are made for their specific requirements and we have maybe 30 or 40 of them.

Hand Labor Necessary
"We put them in all sorts of packaging, bulk, retail and single serve, and we even do private label. It requires a lot of handling and hand labor. We have 20 employees and about 60 percent of the salad assembly they do is by hand."

About 20 percent of Saladland’s products are made strictly with fresh-cut vegetables. Other items may include cooked pasta or meat. A federal inspector is on premises to monitor all cooked items, in the same way USDA inspectors oversee U.S. facilities.

Adding meats, pastas, cheeses and other items to the mix gives Saladland an impressive creative ability. The resulting line of salads and meals available for supermarkets, delis, cafeterias, restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and salad bars is impressive.

"We have a salad that’s tremendously popular right now," Shamim Karmali notes. "We call it Rotini Monaco. It is tri-color rotini with olives and fresh-cut red peppers, green peppers, celery, and carrot sticks. It is one of our most popular items.

"We also have a traditional Greek salad made entirely of fresh-cut vegetables. It includes cucumbers, red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes and red onions with feta cheese.

"As for prepared meals, our line of Mexican entrees is tremendously popular.

A Quality Niche
"Our niche is meals and salads with high quality and good value, not low-priced volume items, though we do those, too, so we can offer our customers a full line of products. We appeal more to the upper end foodservice and retail take-home market. You might see products like ours in a Canadian store similar to Wegman’s or Meijer in the states. They are higher quality salads available in self-serve salad bars. We work with most of the high-end retailers. Customers are paying a premium price, but they’re getting a fresher, better quality product."

Saladland offers a complete program to both retailers and foodservice operators, according to Azim Karmali.

"We are introducing some new retail concepts that include 40- to 50-foot salad bars," he explains. "They feature fresh-cut vegetables, fruits and salads. We don’t just provide the product. We work with customers, especially if they’re not comfortable with whether the margins are there or not. We work with them and show them how a different mix of salad and other ingredients will actually give them the returns they want. In fact, many of our customers exceed their expectations for returns."

Determining the proper mix of salads and other items on the salad bar is a key to profitability, according to Karmali.

Getting the Right Mix
"If you have the right mix of very nice, high-class salads with some inexpensive salads, people are attracted to it and they choose a mix," he continues. "For example, if you have a jumbo shrimp salad, which is $15 a pound, and you have a cole slaw that is $2 a pound, people are not going to go and load up on the shrimp salad all the time. They need a little bit of both.

"The whole idea is to attract them with the good salads so they take them, but they will also take other basic staple salads because people love staples. The whole key to this is that we can help our customers get the profit margins without deteriorating the quality of their salad bar. You want enough variety so a person who comes two weeks from now will see totally different salads. You can choose 10 of our salads every week and the person will not see the same salads when he comes back."

Salads and salad bars are popular in Canada. Ethnic salads and lots of variety are keys to satisfying Canadian palates, according to Karmali. He says consumers want Asian cuisine, pastas, exotic vegetables and all kinds of colorful and flavorful items.

"We make our own dressings from scratch," he says. "We don’t use any pre-made dressings. We might have an artichoke salad with peppers, celery and other ingredients. We might have a mushroom salad with other vegetables and a garden vegetable salad with all sorts of vegetables. We have a vegetable pasta salad with carrots, cherry tomatoes, snow peas and other vegetables. Then we have a farmer’s salad made with red-skinned potatoes, a different cut of carrots, green beans, and rotini with olives.

Consumers Want Adventure
"We’ve noticed people are tired of your basic cole slaws and potato salads. They are more adventurous now, especially in Canada, because we’re a very diverse population."

Thanks to rising costs in all areas, even institutional foodservice operations such as hospitals and nursing homes are responding favorably to Saladland’s brand of quality, variety and service, according to Karmali.

"In Canada there is a lot of cost-cutting and a lot of scrutinizing of budgets," he says. "We started working with the health care facilities and initially there was some reluctance because they thought the cost would be way over what they could afford because they are buying ready-made products.

"We did a proposal to one health care institution, they tried out our product and, within months, they basically said, ‘Our food costs are lower than what they were before. Even if we went for a high-end salad, our food costs are still lower than what they would be if we made it ourselves and our turnover is higher in terms of sales.’"

Attention to customers’ needs pays big dividends, according to Karmali. He says SaladLand reaps big rewards by going the second mile in service.

Quality, Customer Service
"We work with one customer that needs to have the product on their dock by quarter to six in the morning," he points out. "We go out of our way to make sure that product is there. Another one of our customers, a supermarket, tried out a new program during the holidays. They came to us with an idea to supply a complete turkey dinner to customers and they wanted everything, the packaging and the pricing, within a few weeks. We were able to do it. It was very successful to the point where they are going to do it again."

Freshness is an important facet of Saladland’s success, Karmali adds.

"We make our own deliveries in refrigerated trucks because we want to make sure the customer gets the optimum product," he explains. "We actually go out and put the product in the customers’ coolers. That allows us to rotate the product and make sure it is being kept and handled properly.

"We’re very customer focused. Shamim says, ‘I will only send you a product if I am prepared to feed it to my kids.’ But the single most important thing is that we give them a fresh product and the turnaround is very fast."

Looking ahead, Shamim Karmali sees a growing interest in the United States and overseas markets.

"We are seriously looking at alliances with businesses interested in introducing our concept globally," she announces. "The Internet is another avenue we are exploring. The future looks very promising."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Alaska Carrot Company: Cut-and-Peeled Carrots

Fresh Cut
September 2000

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – To John Baldiviez, "The Last Frontier" means more than a nickname for the state where he operates his business. It’s also an accurate phrase for describing the abundant opportunities he sees for producing cut-and-peeled carrots and other fresh-cut fruits and vegetables in Alaska.

Baldiviez and his wife, Ginna, founded Alaska Carrot Company, Inc., less than a year ago and have already found their business is so volatile it can easily become too hot to handle.

"The business is just phenomenal," Baldiviez says. "I have to put the brakes on every once in awhile because we’re going so fast. The market was ready. The Alaska market is growing. There’s still a lot of opportunity."

Baldiviez grew up in the produce industry in Southern California. As a young man he worked for Fresher By Far, his stepfather’s fresh produce processing operation in Anaheim. In 1982, he went to Anchorage to open up a local branch for Food Services of America, Inc.

"I learned logistically how to ship produce to Alaska and throughout the state of Alaska, which is an art in itself, because it can be tricky at times, depending on the time of year and the weather and so on," he relates.

Favorable Response
Finding that Alaskans would respond favorably when they could buy higher quality fresh fruits, he left FSA and started a produce wholesale business with two other partners, selling fresh fruit through a produce stand and warehouse in Anchorage.

"At that time, in the mid- to late-’80s, consumers in Alaska were not used to having fresh edible fruit," he recalls. "They were used to eating peaches that were like apples when you bit into them because all the retailers shipped defensively up to Alaska because of shrink. They didn’t want to ship tree-ripened peaches because of the transit time and then put them out on the rack and just let them rot."

After the wholesale business, Baldiviez worked for Sysco Food Services and opened up a local branch office for them and last year he and his wife launched Alaska Carrot Co. to help market Alaska-grown carrots.

"I had worked with Alaska farmers for a lot of years, helping them develop their packs and grow the size of vegetables restaurants are looking for," the entrepreneur recalls. "So I had been in contact with the farmers and some of them were doing cello carrots for the Alaska retail market. But that was it. Nobody really took it any further."

Last year, however, Baldiviez talked with a carrot grower and decided he could make a business out of cut-and-peeled carrots by capitalizing on the "made in Alaska" image.

"Made in Alaska"
"We did it to further promote the Alaska-grown carrot," Baldiviez reasons. "People are very supportive of anything that is made in Alaska. On our bags, we have a little logo that has a couple of bears on it and says ‘Made in Alaska.’ The locals really support that. We’ve got 15 employees here and we’re bringing jobs to the locals. So, even when the carrots are not local, they support it and, besides that, it’s fresher."

Baldiviez agreed to take about 11 acres of carrots from a local grower last year and the rest is history. He bought the necessary equipment, including a carrot sizer, a bin dumper, and a peeler, and began cutting carrots from the field into two-inch segments and peeling them and rounding off their edges.

"I think we ended up purchasing about 150,000 to 175,000 pounds of Alaska carrots that first year," he explains. "We offer both the Alaska-grown carrots and those grown in California and Oregon. I think we’re doing great because we’re local."

Freshness is definitely an issue since most other cut carrots are grown and bagged in California before being shipped to Alaska to appear on retailers’ shelves, according to Baldiviez.

"We’re processing today and we’re shipping tomorrow," Baldiviez continues. "It could be on the rack as early as tomorrow. It’s definitely fresher product. The other carrots are coming to Seattle first and then being shipped from another wholesaler there. It sits in their cooler for awhile and by the time the stores up here get it, they may have 14 days’ shelf life left on it when it was originally 30 days.

Inventory Control
"The other issue is that retailers and wholesalers here in Alaska can control their inventory. For example, when I place an order to ship out of California on Thursday or Friday, it will be up here the following week. When I do that, I’m anticipating that these items are going to move. Well, everybody has to do that up here and, if you’re long on something, it can take a couple weeks to control your inventory. This way, if they buy product from me, they control their inventory. It isn’t an issue for them any more. They can control their shrink and it takes some of the headaches of the logistics out of it for them."

Buying packaged cut-and-peeled carrots from Alaska Carrot Co. can also save Alaskan businesses on freight costs, according to Baldiviez. Lettuce, for instance may sell for $4.00 per box in Salinas, but that price can climb to $10.00 per box by the time shipping costs have been added.

"It’s approximately 20 cents to 25 cents per pound to get anything from California to Anchorage," he explains. "We truck it to Seattle where we have a warehouse to transload product and bring it to Anchorage either by truck or by vessel. Either way, you’re looking at three days from the time it gets to Seattle.

"I get better freight rate than a restaurant because we’re buying direct out of California and if I can deliver them carrots or other vegetables already cut to their specifications, they’re tickled to death. If they have to process in their back room, they lose a lot of the product they just paid to ship up here."

Excited on the North Slope
Baldiviez caters to all Alaskan food retailers and also to the wholesalers who serve the foodservice trade. His products are also shipped to Alaska’s North Slope area where oil companies are feeding crews of up to 1,500 men three meals daily.

"I’m working with the wholesalers who have those food contracts," he explains. "They’re excited up there to get this new food program, because they’ve never had it before."

Since launching his carrot processing operation, Baldiviez has expanded to process other fresh vegetables and fruits for local markets. Cutting and packaging fresh peppers, celery sticks, onions and even strawberries, he has met with enthusiastic response from his buyers.

"We’ve expanded into a variety of different items," he says. "We do hand-cut, sliced strawberries for the train that goes up to Denali Park in the summertime. Now, tourists can eat fresh-cut California strawberries that were cut in Anchorage."

Because fresh-cut produce is often a new idea for Alaska’s foodservice industry, demand can be strong—sometimes too strong, according to Baldiviez.

"Especially at Prudhoe Bay, some of this stuff is unheard of up here," he says. "The sliced and diced peppers, the stir-fry mixes are all new. Kitchen help is expensive. It’s an all-around saving for the foodservice operator. It’s win/win for everybody.

"There’s so much business it can get out of control. We have to take it easy and take one step at a time. Right now the focus is broccoli florets. We’re doing mainly specialty cuts. A lot of our stuff is cut by hand, just to meet the specifications of different restaurants.

"I couldn’t do this anywhere else. I couldn’t open up a processing facility like this in Seattle or California. It’s just such a unique market for us up here. Up here, nobody else is doing this and it’s quite an opportunity."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Fresh Produce & Floral Council: Looking at Risks for Food-borne Illness

Fresh Cut
September 2000

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Grower/shippers and fresh-cut processors may ship absolutely safe fruits and vegetables to end users, but their efforts can all be undone by careless handling and lack of knowledge, according to food safety analyst Jeffrey B. Nelken.

Speaking June 13 during a seminar on food safety at the Fresh Produce & Floral Council’s 2000 Produce Expo at the Disneyland Hotel, Nelken said consumers, restaurateurs, retail produce departments and delis frequently do not handle produce properly. Carelessness with melons and other items can dramatically increase the risk of serious food-borne illnesses caused by Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7 or other pathogens.

"The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta now reports between 5,500 and 6,000 people each year die from food-borne illness," the Woodland, California-based expert reported. "Thirty-three percent of the outbreaks of food-borne illness occur in restaurants and delis and 25 percent occur in the home. You’ve got a lot of problems going on in these areas."

Nelken, who inspects facilities and trains food handlers in the Los Angeles area, showed several video clips that illustrated the scope of food safety problems in foodservice establishments and also cited a study of home kitchens that revealed serious food safety risks.

Risky in New York
In a news video filmed in New York City, a commercial pest control specialist reported two-thirds of all restaurants in The Big Apple have been cited for insects and rodents in the last five years. When asked to recall the largest number of rats he ever removed from a single establishment, he responded with the staggering figure of 287.

Nelken also cited a study of home kitchens by Audits International that showed 30 percent of home refrigerators in the United States operate at temperatures of 45°F to 50°F and about 25 percent of Americans like to eat undercooked hamburgers and eggs. Many of those same people use their cutting boards for meat and poultry and then chop vegetables without washing them first.

"According to the study, 76 percent of American homes have heavy cross-contamination issues in their kitchens," Nelken announced. "Fifty-seven percent are neglecting hand washing. Other problems include improper leftover cooling, improper chemical storage and misuse of towels and sponges. Ninety-two percent of families have no thermometers at home.

"You can see we have a big problem here with consumers and foodservice establishments. And what’s eventually going to happen is, as the consumers get sick, who are they going to blame? Are they going to blame themselves? No. They’re going to come back at all of you. So we need to start thinking about how we’re going to do a better job of educating the end user."

Food Safety in L.A.
Nelken also showed a video of news reports filmed by a Los Angeles television station using hidden cameras placed in area restaurants. Choosing the facilities that scored lowest on Los Angeles County Health Department inspections, the station filmed filthy employee habits, including eating while preparing food, failing to wash hands and sneezing into hands while working with food. One worker caught on tape ate food, licked his fingers and then continued handling food for customers. Another helped himself to food from a plate he was preparing to serve to a customer.

Thanks to a growing awareness of food safety risks in the foodservice community, Los Angeles County recently passed a law requiring each establishment to have one employee trained in food safety procedures. That person also has the responsibility to teach other members of the staff to observe safe practices when handling and preparing food.

In addition, the health department has redesigned its inspections to emphasize not only the cleanliness of the facility but also the food safety knowledge of employees, according to Nelken.

"They wanted to move toward looking at things that are high risk," he said. "For instance, if you have cooks that don’t know the proper temperature for cooking chicken, that’s a very high risk."

Tighter Inspections
During his presentation, Nelken introduced Terrance Powell, head of the L.A. County Health Department, who further explained the new approach being taken in the county’s food safety inspections. He lamented the fact that the produce industry in general does not appear to have responded to food safety risks in the same manner as other industries such as meat, seafood and poultry.

"There is identification of certain practices and prevention, but generally across the board, the industry has not responded to the risks associated with produce," Powell explained. "We have had a number of outbreaks. With mung bean sprouts, we had 46 cases of Salmonella in April of 2000. With clover sprouts, there were 79 cases of Salmonella in Colorado in May of 1999. Tomatoes were also associated with a strain of Salmonella in March of 1999."

Powell continued by saying too many produce preparation rooms in foodservice operations and retail delis do not have proper facilities for preparing produce. Employees do not properly sanitize knives, especially in cutting melons, products that have been associated with outbreaks of Salmonella. Melons may come into contact with bacteria in the field and, if they are not washed properly, knives used to cut through the peel will spread bacteria to flesh on the inside. Once cut, melons should be kept cold, at a temperature of 41°F or lower.

"If you go to produce rooms, across the board you will not find any sort of sanitization associated with utensils," Powell continued. "In fact, there is usually just a one-compartment sink for washing produce."

Focus on High Risks
In view of the many risks present in the Los Angeles area, Powell said the health department has moved away from "what is called the walls, floors, and ceiling inspection" and is placing greater emphasis on the most serious risks identified by examining CDC statistics about food-borne outbreaks. For example, according to Powell, the CDC reported 76 million Americans contracted a food-borne illness in 1999. Thirty-five percent of those were due to using improper holding temperatures for foods.

"One of the problems we have is that we have 33,000 facilities and we write reports every day, however, the industry as a whole was very comfortable in receiving those reports, making some corrections and then waiting for us to come back again on another routine inspection," he reasoned. "So we became kind of their spring cleaning person, if you will."

Now, however, foodservice establishments are to be graded according to both food safety performance and knowledge. The letter grade they receive will be based on their inspection score and could directly affect business.

"With regard to grading, which is very controversial here in L. A. and, indeed around the country, we find that grading makes the industry proactive," Powell said. "It offers an incentive to prevent things from happening so one can score higher. And we’re seeing that across the board. We have an 85 percent increase in our highest score in the A category, for example.

Empowering Consumers
"We post signs that say a facility has scored a certain grade based on the percentage of violations and that is actually an empowerment tool for consumers. It gives them an idea of how this place does under inspection and whether or not they want to eat there or not."

Powell says the amended inspection form is divided into five parts. The first three have point deductions. The highest point deductions in the first section are levied for more serious food safety violations while more moderate violations in the other sections do not result in major deductions.

"With respect to training, Los Angeles County has given certificates to approximately 40,000 employees in the foodservice industry," Powell explained. "We believe that is going to top out at about 65,000. But we find that many times we will have a dishwasher or the owner as the certificate holder and they may be absent. Therefore the practical knowledge obtained through the certification is not applied at the site. Conversely, having the appropriate employee educated means you have a person who can delegate information to other employees and even implement programs. It’s not just going to school. It’s being apple to apply the knowledge and having the appropriate person assigned at the site."

Training & Technology
Nelken, who inspects facilities to help them prepare for county inspectors, says he takes a practical approach, documenting temperatures and questioning staff to be sure they understand the reasons for specific food safety procedures.

He also mentioned new technology that can help foodservice operations do a better job of reducing food safety risks in their kitchens. One, a new test kit from Merck Pharmaceuticals called the Hy-Lite 2 Rapid Hygiene Monitoring System (available from SEMCO Labs), allows workers to take a swab from a food preparation surface and get an accurate bacterial count within 60 seconds. It is a cost-effective way for even small businesses to monitor food safety.

Another aid for foodservice operations is a monitoring unit called FoodWatch for refrigeration systems that can keep staff posted on temperatures and also warn them 30 days in advance when a refrigeration unit is about to break down. The FoodWatch predicts a failure before it happens and tracks the length of time a refrigerator door is left open. It is available from American Icebox Monitors, Inc.

"The writing is on the wall," Nelken says. "The Marriotts and the Disneys of the world are demanding HACCP plans from all their vendors and suppliers. The future has arrived. Marriott requires that all melons that come into their facilities must be washed in a new produce wash from EcoLab called Victory. And we’ve found that lowering bacteria counts on produce will make it last two or three days longer in the cold room.

"It’s all a matter of educating the end user. Most restaurants just pull their cantaloupes out of the boxes and start whacking away at them when they really should be washing them first. Most places do not have a proper process that they follow. The funny part is that if these people mishandle produce and have an outbreak, they’re going to turn around and blame the suppliers. That’s why it’s so important that we have to educate the end user."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

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From Rasberries to Packaged Salads, Drew and Myra Goodman's Roadside Stand Has Grown

Fresh Cut
October 2000

CARMEL, Calif. — There was a little serendipity, a lot of hard work and some homespun creative marketing in the way Drew and Myra Goodman transformed a roadside raspberry stand into North America’s largest organic produce operation.

It was an unlikely beginning, but their tiny enterprise eventually blossomed into an old-fashioned made-from-scratch success story—just like the raspberry muffins Myra baked for that first moneymaking venture.

"My husband and I are both from Manhattan," Myra recalls, making the couple’s odyssey sound almost casual. "We’re both city kids, so we’re not the typical ag lineage. We moved onto our property in 1984 right after college and we just wondered, ‘What shall we do to take a little time off before we figure out what our real careers are going to be?’

"There was a half-acre of raspberries on the property. The people that lived there before had picked the raspberries and had a little sign down the driveway announcing fresh raspberries for sale. We took over that operation and it was our initial job and ‘moneymaking machine.’ I’d bake raspberry muffins and make raspberry jam and raspberry applesauce. We did this kind of homestead thing and sold it all at our little raspberry stand on the road."

Berry Small Beginnings
Drew and Myra dubbed their new business Earthbound Farm, never suspecting how ubiquitous that brand name would later become in grocery stores around the nation.

Realizing they were spending all day picking berries and four more hours selling them by the road, the Goodmans decided to deliver directly to local restaurants. Since they had an agreement with their landlord to improve the property in exchange for rent, it was only natural that when chefs asked for fresh herbs, too, they suddenly saw another use for their two-acre plot.

"The property was pretty run-down," Myra remembers. "We were clearing away and reclaiming land and the first thing we did was to plant an herb garden. We started selling herbs along with the raspberries and delivering everything directly to some of the local chefs. We also had chefs that would come to our little farm and buy berries and herbs."

In 1985, a local chef told the Goodmans she had seen two-inch baby heads of lettuce selling in San Francisco for the same price as full-size heads.

Trying Baby Lettuces
"She said she’d love to try them and was sure other chefs would, too," Myra continues. "So we started growing little lettuces, rinsing the heads and packing them in boxes lined with plastic bags and the chefs liked them. That’s when we started experimenting with different salad greens like arugula and mizuna that were only grown full-size for the Asian market. By the time we were six months into it, we probably had 30 or 40 varieties of lettuces and greens.

"We loved to eat the exotic salads we grew, but it was too time consuming to cut and wash all these lettuces and greens and make a salad to eat after working a 12-hour day. So on Sundays we would cut the lettuce and the greens and wash them in our sink and dry them all by hand. Then we’d bag them in Ziploc bags, one for each day of the week, and they’d stay fresh all week for us to eat.

"That was when we came up with the idea of Earthbound Farm Salad Bags. We thought it would be such a great product for people who don’t have a home garden or a lot of time. They could just go to a store and buy pre-washed, fresh-from-the-garden gourmet greens."

It wasn’t until their largest customer suddenly dropped out of the picture, however, that Drew and Myra put their idea for retail bagged salads to the test.

Desperately Seeking Buyers
"We were custom growing for the Rio Grill, a restaurant in Carmel," Myra relates. "We were good friends with the chef there and he was one of the only people using baby greens at that time. The greens weren’t a commodity like they are now and probably half our land was planted for this one customer. Overnight there was a falling out between the chef and the owner of the restaurant and he left. The new chef didn’t want to deal with any of the existing purveyors. All of a sudden we had all this stuff in our garden, ready to harvest. Everything was hand-planted and hand-weeded and we didn’t know what we were going to do.

"So we went to Safeway, bought a bunch of Ziploc bags, washed and dried our greens, and I drew little labels by hand and glued them on the bags and we took them to the local specialty markets and said, ‘Do you want to try and sell these bags?’ They said they would if we would guarantee sales. We started with these local markets and then we started taking them up to San Francisco to some specialty markets. Before we knew it, we had a business in our living room bagging salads. Our first packaged salads were in stores in 1986."

Myra says they built their salad business to about $5 million a year in their house before realizing they had to move out and dedicate the entire building to production. Eventually their operation occupied the house and a 600-square-foot barn. Myra’s father, a retired jeweler, designed and built the washing system and packaging line because no equipment manufacturers were making machinery for small retail bags.

Farming Operation Grows
To meet growing demand for organic greens, the Goodmans hired some small-scale farmers originally from the Mexican state of Oaxaca to help farm their land as well as some leased ground. They also began contracting with other growers.

The Goodmans purchased a 32-acre farm in nearby Watsonville, California, in 1989 and planted additional greens, still processing them at their original site. Then, in 1992, when bagged salad greens were experiencing growth across the nation, they built and moved into a new 9,000-square-foot production facility in Watsonville and began selling one-pound bags of salad greens to major food retailers including Costco, Lucky Stores, Safeway and Albertsons. In 1994, they introduced upscale Ultimate Salad Kits, pairing innovative mixes of organic greens with all-natural dressings and toppings.

In 1995, to keep pace with burgeoning demand for organic specialty salads, Earthbound Farm partnered with Mission Ranches, a group of large-scale farmers in the Salinas Valley, and formed a new company called Natural Selection Foods. Total organic production at that time was 800 acres.

A year later, the newly formed company added organic broccoli, cauliflower, celery, green onions, artichokes, radishes, leeks and red vine-ripe tomatoes to its Earthbound Farm label and moved to a new 25,000-square-foot state-of-the-art production facility in San Juan Bautista. Within two years, the company’s organic farming operation had grown to 5,800 acres.

Reaching Critical Mass
With its new facility (including a recent addition of 60,000 square feet) and more than 7,000 acres in organic production, Natural Selection Foods has reached a critical mass enabling the company to be a year-round source of organic products for major retail customers. Since entering into a one-third partnership with Tanimura & Antle in 1999, the company is now poised to expand its reach even further. T&A has entered 1,500 acres of prime farmland into transition to become certified organic ground in three years.

As organic produce gradually achieves mainstream status in the nation’s supermarkets, Natural Selection Foods’ Earthbound Farm label stands as the most recognized organic brand in North America. The company has introduced such everyday products as romaine salad blends, specialty salad Value Packs, and Carrot Snack Packs, as well as some cutting-edge specialties like UltraSalad and Microgreens.

Most recently, knowing that 60 percent of all packaged salads purchased in America contain traditional iceberg lettuce, the innovators at Natural Selection Foods have introduced two organic alternatives, the Earthbound Farm Garden Salad and the Earthbound Farm American Salad. The first is a standard blend of iceberg, shredded carrots and cabbage and the second is romaine, iceberg, carrots and cabbage. Thanks to the vision of Drew and Myra, most consumers who want organic produce of any kind are finding they can buy it at their favorite supermarket.

This year, the U.S. organic market is expected to reach more than $7 billion in sales. It has been growing at 20 percent to 24 percent per year for the last eight years. Faced with such an opportunity, Natural Selection Foods is perfectly positioned to lead the market in produce. The company that started as a raspberry stand 16 years ago has been growing at a rate of 30 percent to 50 percent annually since it’s inception.

Natural Selection’s organic products may have joined the mainstream ranks of packaged goods, gaining widespread recognition in the nation’s grocery stores, but Drew and Myra Goodman’s homemade creative flair still drives the company’s marketing efforts. Their "Food to live by" advertising campaign includes their son, Jeffrey, clowning with tantalizing organic fruits and vegetables. Their web site, ebfarm.com, is punctuated with ladybugs and a butterfly that flaps its wings. It features a children’s coloring book entitled "Organic Superheroes" and a CD entitled "We’re Next," with songs for children written by their daughter, Marea, and her music teacher.

Today, the company boasts a full line of more than 100 certified organic salads, fruits and vegetables and is the nation’s largest supplier of organic produce and largest producer of specialty salads.

Farm Stand, Too
For local Californians and visitors, there’s still a farm stand, too, just down the road from the original site, offering tours and educational programs for school children. The stand sells fresh organic salad mixes and produce along with organic foods such as jams, jellies, granola, chocolates, and homemade cookies—even tie-dyed T-shirts.

Drew and Myra Goodman and their passion for organic foods have come a long way since the early years of their salad company.

"About eight or nine years ago, when we did our first PMA foodservice show, people completely ignored us," Myra says, reminiscing about how she had the backdrop for their booth painted by hand. "They just passed us by, as if to say, ‘Aren’t these kids selling these baby greens ridiculous?’ We just wanted so much to have somebody stop by the booth at that show and now, you can’t even walk into our booth it’s so crowded."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Natural Selection Foods:Organics for All

Fresh Cut
October 2000

Natural Selection Foods is on a roll. Sales of the company’s organic salads, fruits and vegetables are outstripping the annual growth rate of the organic category as a whole—and there’s no end in sight.

"Growth has been tremendous here at Natural Selection Foods," says Tonya Pavich, vice president of organic sales. "The organic segment still only represents approximately 3 percent of total produce sales nationwide, so we anticipate steady growth for many more years. We have many retailers on programs that vary in size and they are sharing great success stories with us. Some have really focused on organics as a priority category and have up to 150 organic items in a 350-SKU produce department. In these cases, as much as 12 percent of produce sales are organic. These retailers have really differentiated themselves from their competition."

Pavich reports the organic category in general has been growing in excess of 20 percent since 1990 and, during the same period of time, sales at Natural Selection Foods have exceeded industry growth.

"Our growth this year will come from increased supplies from our own farm base," she says. "Additionally, growth will come from our in-house procurement service as well as excellent organic growers joining our marketing efforts under the number one organic brand in the nation, Earthbound Farm.

Extended Marketing Reach
"Once we were able to provide a continuous year round supply of salads and developed a successful program with one traditional retailer per market, it wasn’t long before others followed suit. Today we offer over 100 organic items under the Earthbound Farm brand so that we can serve our customers needs with a compressive organic program. This successful program is anchored by the fact that we control over 7000 certified organic acres with another 2000 acres in transition to organic. This is vital in being able to offer a consistent supply of top quality organic produce to the marketplace."

The strategy has worked, according to Pavich. Nielsen scan data shows that only 60 percent of U.S. stores today handle organic packaged salads. "What that tells me is that the remaining 40 percent represents future opportunity," she reasons. "Organic foods have truly become part of the American mainstream and the bulk of Natural Selection Foods’ sales are being made to mass market supermarkets throughout North America.

"We feel mass market supermarkets have tremendous potential to expand the organic segment and take this category to the next level. Our main focus this year is to help our customers customize their own successful program within the parameters of their marketing and sales strategies. We are known in the marketplace for our innovative products, eye-catching packaging, and our ability to help our customers build a successful organic business."

Organics in the Mainstream
The secret to entering the mainstream has been making organic salads and other items user-friendly for conventional retailers. When a grocer can offer organic products to consumers, promote volume organic items and run them through the checkout stand as easily as conventional foods, sales will only continue to improve, according to Pavich.

"Another way we are building Earthbound Farm organic sales for our customers is with our aggressive consumer advertising campaign. Being in the majority of supermarkets in North America has offered us the opportunity." she explains. "Our advertising delivers well above 10 million impressions of the Earthbound Farm message. It has brought consumers to our web site and is helping educate them on the virtues of organic produce. It’s exciting because we see that it’s working and we plan on increasing our campaign for the coming year."

The recent introduction of organic iceberg lettuce salads has also helped make organic more appealing to mainstream consumers, according to Pavich.

"Often we have mothers tell us they want to serve their children an organic salad, but the spring mix does not satisfy their young taste buds," she explains. "So these mothers are really excited about our new organic iceberg salads and, even though it happens to be a very difficult commodity to grow organically, we are committed to seeing this product flourish. Consumers view Earthbound Farm as an innovative marketer bringing new organic products to the marketplace."

Foodservice, Too

In addition to retail, Natural Selection Foods serves a large clientele in the foodservice arena, according to Jon Kiley, foodservice sales manager. He says about 40 percent of the company’s business is foodservice.

"We have a full line of organic salads for foodservice," Kiley explains. "About 15 percent of our foodservice business is organic. Our conventional foodservice products support our transition from conventional to organic ground. We anticipate the percent of organic products sold into the food service segment will continue to grow as chefs seek out organic produce alternatives for their restaurants."

The number one foodservice item sold by Natural Selection Foods is a three-pound pillow pack of spring mix, according to Kiley.

Natural Selection Foods ships organic produce by truck or by air to customers in North America and supports an export business, according to Pavich. Once the USDA has finalized the national organic standards, she anticipates additional countries will buy organic produce from Natural Selection Foods.

"For example, there are still some concerns in countries such as Japan, about what is considered certified organic and consequently these countries are kind of sitting on the fence," she reports. "Once we have a uniform definition for organic in the United States and are able to satisfy international requirements—sales should increase."

At Natural Selection Foods, produce marketing means more than just selling product, according to Pavich. "It’s our goal to make the organic choice viable by meeting the needs of our customers, our consumers and our growers."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

Keeping Pace with the Organic "Craze"

Fresh Cut
October 2000

CHICAGO—Last May, the Food Marketing Institute entitled a workshop at their 2000 convention in Chicago’s McCormick Place "The Organic Craze" and speakers who participated made it clear the phrase is not an exaggeration.

"About two years ago, our company attended an FMI whole health session and in another year of thinking about how we were stepping up to wellness in our retail strategy, we got a wake-up call," announced workshop chair Russell T. (Tres) Lund III, president and CEO of Lund Food Holdings, Inc. "We realized the organic industry, including perishable and packaged goods, has grown at 20 percent a year over the last years.

"In our format alone, without trying, the movement of organic packaged products and organic produce had been eclipsing the national trend. We had been posting 30 percent gains. Now, this year, in our 19 stores, we will have set the organics through all departments and signed them, which is a critical component. To us, the organic movement has shifted from the fringe to the mainstream."

Workshop facilitator and president of The Fresh Ideas Group, Sylvia Tawse, who is married to a Colorado organic farmer, agreed with Lund’s assessment.

vvFull-fledged Industry
"Today we’re a full-fledged industry," she asserted. "Today’s consumer is the mainstream consumer. "How many lead paragraphs of every news story start with, ‘Organic has moved from the tie-dyed hippie fringe to the mainstream?’ Well, that’s where we are today. You’re going to see that you have many types of consumers coming into your stores and shopping organic products in their primary store. They want these choices at many retail venues, including restaurants."

Tawse insisted 20 percent to 24 percent annual growth figures for organic products are conservative. Studies by the Organic Trade Association have shown manufacturers of organic products have a median annual growth of 40 percent while retailers have shown a median growth of 15 percent.

"There’s a gap there that’s significant, but rings with opportunity," she reasoned. "It’s very telling when you look a the companies that are now on board with either an organic program, an organic SKU, or have bought an organic company as part of their organic branding. They include General Mills, Heinze, Gerber, Gallo, Dole, M&M/Mars and Tanimura & Antle. These are leaders of the food and beverage industry."

Tawse cited the Trends 2000 report from FMI that shows more than half of all consumers surveyed said they shop for organic food at their primary supermarket at least once a month.

Opportunity Knocking
"So, if you’re missing that shopper in your supermarket, you’re missing an opportunity," she charged. "Of that same group, 24 percent do so once a week and 38 percent said they almost always look at organic claims when deciding whether or not to purchase a food product for the very first time."

Tawse cited other studies with similar results, including one completed by the American Dietetic Association that found 52 percent of respondents believe organically grown foods are healthier than regular products. Another study by Bon Apetit magazine found that 68 percent of readers surveyed answered yes to buying organic produce.

"It’s also crossed the oceans," Tawse said about the organic craze. "On the Pacific Rim and in the United Kingdom and Europe, organic foods are absolutely taking off. Stansbury’s in the UK is currently selling 630 organic produce SKUs, adding 65 to 70 a month. Super Target says that in 18 of their stores they have over 1,200 organic SKUs and are planning to add 400. So really, organic is about seizing an opportunity and providing a choice."

Laurie Demeritt of The Hartman Group reported results from the Seattle consulting firm’s 1999 Organic Consumer Profile, a mail survey with 26,000 respondents representative of the U.S. population, as well as results from other organic research involving live consumer interviews.

Large Potential Market
"We found one-third of consumers were currently buying organic products," she announced. "Even more interesting is that 60 percent of consumers said they weren’t currently but were open to try organic. So there’s a potential market there. Only 10 percent of consumers said they would never buy an organic product.

"We did a similar survey about three to four years ago and 30 percent of consumers said they would never consider buying an organic food product. You can see consumers are changing a lot of their ideas about what organic means and how it can play a role in their lifestyle."

The Hartman Group is often asked about the demographics of organic consumers, but the profile has changed dramatically as organic buying habits have spread to nearly every segment of the U.S. population.

"Everybody wants to break them down," Demeritt said. "How old are they? What do they look like? They want to target these people. It doesn’t work that way any more. When we think about who’s buying organic, I think most people have the idea that they’re the high-income, high-education shopper, likely a female from a family that lives in the suburbs. Those people certainly are buying organic, but there are a lot of others, too.

Hazy Demographics
"We found that in what we call the heavy organic user category, almost half of those people were making under $30,000 in household income. We also found that certain ethnic groups had a very high index of organic purchases and organic usage. This is happening everywhere. You can’t talk about demographics any more in this category."

Demeritt said lifestyle is now closely linked to studies of organic consumers. The category is not being driven by products or by brands but by a lifestyle that appeals to certain consumers.

"So how do you measure who these consumers are that are changing their lifestyles?" Demeritt continued. "We did it three ways. We looked at how they live, how they shop and what they buy. One of the important things to remember is that experimentation key. Consumers want to be able to walk into a store and have a lot of choices.

"It’s not the same organic consumer of 10 years ago. Ten years ago, consumers were committed to the cause. They wanted to save the world. I’m being facetious, but they were very idealistic. They were willing to go out of their way. They were willing to pay more because they were committed to what organic means."

Today’s typical buyer of organic products is much different, according to The Hartman Group’s research. They’re not so idealistic. They buy organic foods for their health. They’re interested in experimenting.

Consumers Want Dinner
"One thing we joke about when we discuss consumers buying organic is that people still just want to go to the grocery store and buy dinner," Demeritt pointed out. "They don’t want to save the world. They just want to get dinner. However, if they’re there and they can make a choice that makes them feel good about what they’re doing for themselves and their family, they’re going to choose organic."

Today’s successful organic products must still meet other criteria that appeal to today’s busy retailers and consumers, according to Demeritt. They must be easily available and convenient.

Consumers tend to look at organic products in various categories such as healthful breakfast cereals they can feed their children, she added.

"You just can’t put a label on all these people and say they’re all eating the same way," she reasoned. "There are certain products people prefer to use before they move up to other organics. One is produce. A lot of people start buying organic produce before they start buying other categories. The second category is baby food. A number of new parents are buying organic baby food for their kids but not for themselves. And a lot of folks want to have fresh milk that does not have growth hormones. So there are three categories people tend to use before they move into other products."

Name Your Brand
Branding is important to organic consumers, but, at the same time, Demeritt noted there are currently few brands available in the organic category. A survey question about brands revealed 81 percent of consumers who currently buy organic products could not name a single organic brand. The other 19 percent, she reported, frequently named something that wasn’t actually organic.

"There is no brand loyalty or brand equity right now in this category," she said. "It’s an emerging marketplace. Brands take awhile to build and become important. They will, but they’re not right now."

Again, lifestyle, along with a sense of community, are important factors to consider in appealing to organic consumers, Demeritt told retailers at the FMI workshop, mentioning the lifestyle experience of community at a Starbucks coffee outlet or with a personality like Martha Stewart.

"Take a store like Whole Foods Market," Demeritt explained. "They have created an experience for consumers. They have consumers who go into their stores and spend an hour. They walk around. They talk to a dietitian. They watch a cooking demonstration. Then they go home and tell their friends what an experience it was while they were there.

The Organic Experience
"When we talk to conventional retailers, they say things like, ‘My consumers don’t have time. They only have five or 10 minutes to spend in my store.’ You have to create the experiences that consumers want to stay in the store for."

Demeritt said her firm’s research has revealed two things seem to have universal appeal for consumers who buy organics. The first is knowledge and the second is an emotional attachment to the store similar to that seen in natural products and health food stores.

"That doesn’t mean knowledge from a manufacturer’s brochure or an article or a book," she continued. "It means personalized knowledge they get from another person. It means someone sitting down and listening to their health concerns, their lifestyle traits, and determining what products they should use."

With regard to emotional attachment, Demeritt pointed out consumers will be much more loyal to a venue if they are emotionally attached to it.

"When we talk about the organic consumer, I think the term is very limiting," she added. "Organic isn’t an isolated category. Consumers don’t say I’m going to buy organic and that’s it. It’s part of a larger world including dietary supplements, natural foods, functional foods, low salt, low fat and low cholesterol. Consumers see this as an array of products from which they can choose. Organic has to become part of a larger strategy to make your store a destination.

"Consumers look at organics as a subset of a larger group of products. If you wan to get these organic consumers in your store, they’re already there. They’re already buying health-promoting products. They just don’t see your store as the ultimate destination for these products. You need to create that by looking at how they live, how they shop and what they buy."

© 2003 Columbia Publishing

The Challenge of Fresh-cut Watermelon

Fresh Cut
October 2000

By Jorge M. Fonseca, James W. Rushing, and Robert F. Testin

According to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, one out of every four watermelons consumed in the United States is cut in some fashion for retail sale. Practically all of the processing is done in the supermarket produce department, which is an inconvenient procedure at best. Managers would love to outsource prepackaged fresh-cut watermelon, but quality of the product starts to deteriorate rapidly after cutting and so far regional distributors haven’t been very successful in providing supermarkets with the high quality consumers demand. We took a close look at fresh-cut watermelon handling practices and came up with three management concerns that have to be handled well in order to distribute packaged product successfully from a central processing location.

Packaging to Minimize Transit Injury.
Usually when a company is selecting a package for a specific fresh-cut item, characteristics such as gas permeability and antifogging capability of the plastic film come to mind. Watermelon cubes require a bit more from a package. First of all, bags won’t work very well. A rigid package is needed to protect the large, thin-walled, delicate cells of watermelon flesh from injury. It doesn’t take much of a bump to rupture cells and cause juice leakage, which is very undesirable in a retail display.

The package also must be designed in a way that minimizes transit stress. We found fresh-cut watermelon holds up well if you just cut it and place it in the refrigerator. But when it is transported, stress from shock and vibration causes bruising, discoloration, and juice leakage. This was proven with a transport simulator in the laboratory and in commercial transit tests with a fresh-cut company (R.C. McEntire Co., Inc. Columbia, SC).

It was very interesting to identify the cause of transit injury and come up with a solution. When watermelon cubes rub against either other, the resulting friction injures cells. Juice leakage is the result. This friction can actually be measured with a specialized machine that tells us the kinetic coefficient of friction (KCOF). We learned that two watermelon cubes rubbing against each other have a much higher KCOF than a watermelon cube rubbing against the side of the plastic package. So we came up with the idea of compartmentalizing the package with plastic material. This minimized the cube-to-cube friction and dramatically reduced the incidence of transit injury.

Another important observation was that smaller cubes suffer more transit injury than larger cubes. In controlled tests, cubes smaller than about one inch square always deteriorated more rapidly than cubes that were larger than about two inches square. So the rule of thumb is to cut the pieces as large as is practical for your market.

Temperature Management to Preserve Quality
Temperature management is the single most important factor involved in the postharvest preservation of fruits and vegetables, including fresh-cut. The buzzword nowadays is cold-chain management, implying that we should try to maintain a continuous chain of cold temperature in postharvest handling systems.

We found fresh-cut watermelon stored at 42°F had about half the shelf life of product stored at 37°F. Respiration rate of the product, which is a pretty good indicator of potential shelf life, was dramatically higher with increasing temperatures. Since we know watermelon is subject to chilling injury, we wanted to find the lowest safe temperature for storage. Below about 34°F, the cubes exhibited water soaking and discoloration is characteristic of chilling injury.

Based on many tests, we recommend storing fresh-cut watermelon at 34°F to 37°F. The temperature should be maintained in this range at all times. This may be a problem for produce managers who display the product on a bed of ice, where the bottom of the package may be too cold and the top of the package may be too warm.

Sanitation Practices to Help Ensure Safety for Consumers.
Food safety is an issue that gets a lot of attention in the press nowadays. Unfortunately, most of the news is bad news. Not long ago, there was an outbreak of E. coli-related illness associated with consumption of fresh-cut watermelon in a restaurant. Experts decided someone in the kitchen had cross-contaminated the watermelon with bacteria from meat in the kitchen. This is exactly the kind of problem that can bring ruin to a business, but fortunately we know of a few management practices that can help avoid such situations.

First of all, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published Good Management Practices for handling and storing all types of food. More recently, the FDA published additional recommendations for Good Agricultural Practices to help reduce the risk of microbial contamination on fresh fruits and vegetables. Anyone who handles any kind of food should be aware of these publications and conform to the regulations and recommendations. Go to www.fda.gov and follow the logical choices.

In our research to find a good sanitizing protocol for fresh cut watermelon, we tried chlorine solutions, ozone dissolved in water, and ultraviolet light. Any of the aqueous treatments did more damage than good since even light centrifugation to remove excess water resulted in mechanical damage to watermelon cubes. Ultraviolet light was the most promising of all treatments, but its effectiveness depends on the amount of watermelon cube surface exposed to the light.

At this time the best recommendation we can give about sanitation is to utilize processing and handling protocols known to help prevent microbial contamination. In this case, it’s a lot easier to prevent a problem from occurring than it is to try to clean up the product after contamination has occurred.