Fresh Cut Magazine

Summer Fun

Some of my fondest memories growing up are visits to amusement parks. Every summer, I would take part in at least one trip – where I would come back exhausted and sunburned. To this day I equate summer with visits to the roller coaster and junk food capitals. The amusement park that I most often attended was Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. While it’s grown considerably since my youth, millions of visitors a year are having the same experiences I grew up with. The park is the featured story in this issue of Fresh Cut: There are more than 70 foodservice outlets inside the park, and more owned by the parent company just outside the park – everything from impulse-buy carts to full-service franchise restaurants. But as society as a whole is gravitating toward healthier items, amusement parks are not seeing that trend in the same…  » Read more

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Amusement park feeds millions of visitors each season

In 2006, 335 million people visited more than 600 amusement parks in the United States. That amounts to estimated revenues of $11.5 billion, a $4 billion increase over 1996. Three million of those sun- and fun-seekers visited Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. The park, open from May to October, is a destination for families within hours of northern Ohio. This May marked the 137th season the park has been in operation and included the grand opening of a new roller coaster. As the park has expanded, so has the amount of time guests stay there and the amount of money they drop – visitors usually make it a two-day trip and spend more than $40 per person inside the park. Food makes up a significant portion of per-person spending, and the park has to be able to efficiently feed guests more than one meal during…  » Read more

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Traceability Provides More Than Safety

One of the most important tasks we face in the produce industry is creating viable traceback systems. During the spinach outbreak last fall, it was painfully clear that our industry’s many levels of distribution complicate the process of tracing the origins of commodities during an outbreak investigation. And this issue surfaces in all market sectors – from grocery stores to restaurants to schools. Three bills have recently passed their first test of approval by making it through the California Senate Agriculture Committee and on to the Senate Health Committee. The first bill will expand the authority of the state’s health department to impound or destroy contaminated produce. The second bill requires strict standards for growers of leafy greens and the third bill calls for an efficient traceback system to prevent industry-wide losses in the event of another outbreak. These bills will affect a large portion of the…  » Read more

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New techs pave the way for increased food safety

In the wake of the 2006 outbreak of E. coli in bagged spinach, processors are looking for faster, more accurate testing equipment to catch contamination before fresh-cut products leave the facilities. But before a new piece of technology can be marketed and sold to the industry, it has to be tested outside of a simulated lab, so technology companies are creating partnerships with processors to create innovative solutions for the industry. Verdelli Farms, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based processor specializing in bagged spinach, began testing a new product from Hanson Technologies, Carlisle, Pa., in May. “It makes sense to have the customer – the processors – involved in the design from the beginning,” said Kyle Olds, director of quality assurance for Verdelli Farms. Hanson Technologies contacted Verdelli Farms to run a pilot program on a piece of equipment that combined two applications – one that was being developed before…  » Read more

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