Fresh Cut Magazine

HMI has exhibited at fresh-cut shows for a quarter century

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Reyco’s UV-C decontamination drum

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Key Technology on the show floor

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Final Thoughts

The Global Conference on Produce Sustainability will wrap up soon, and following evening reception the attendees will head back to their respective places of business.This United Fresh offered so many great opportunities to learn new things about the industry - whether through the educational sessions, general sessions or conference. I hope you'll take what you learned back and use it to innovate your business.The mood at this show was upbeat - it appears that people are starting to come out of the economic funk that has been going around, and that's a good sign for buyers and processors.I'd like to thank the sponsors of the Fresh Cut blog and Twitter feed - Key Technology, Northern Star Engineered Products, Jarvis, Reyco, Heinzen Manufacturing International and FTNON USA. I had the chance to meet with them all to see their new products, and I hope you did……  » Read more

Transportation Sustainability

The last breakout session of the Global Conference for Produce Sustainability featured speakers from three produce shippers - Sysco, CH Robinson and OK Produce. Each approach sustainability a little differently, but the end result is eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing costs.Brady Matoian from OK Produce had an interesting story to tell. He's the CEO of the company now, but he's third generation and before he came on the business was conservative and risk-averse. But Brady, who calls himself a hippie, wanted to clean up and green the company. In 2002, a solar roof was installed that generates 238 kWp and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,800 tons over 30 years. The company had never recycled, either, but with Brady's leadership has reduced the amount of garbage sent to landfills by 94 percent. He's also upgraded vehicles. The sales fleet is made up of……  » Read more

Sustainability at Gills Onions and Crunch Pak

Nikki Rodoni from Gills Onions and Tony Freytag from Crunch Pak spoke about what their companies are doing that is sustainable during the Sustainability in Fresh-Cut Processing session of the sustainability conference.Gills Onions used to apply the onion waste to nearby fields, but that was becoming expensive. It cost nearly $500,000 a year in labor, transport and liability, so the company built an energy system that uses all the juice from the onion skins to create 600 kilowatts of power. The leftover skin, from 300,000 pounds of waste a day, are sold to cattle farms as feed. The energy system cost $10 million to build, but Rodoni said the payoff was only six years due to state and federal grants and cost savings ($700,000 a year alone from electricity cost savings).Gills also is working with universities in the area to go zero waste, and already……  » Read more

Sustainability Center Stage

The Global Conference on Sustainability kicked off this morning in a full ballroom at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Jeff Dlott, president and CEO of SureHarvest, started the discussion by talking about why sustainability matters in 2010. As leaders in the marketplace (the Amazons and WalMarts of the world) seek to connect to customers in deeper ways - while at the same time consumers have more options about how to express demand, compare and buy - sustainability will continue to be part of the equation. Dlott prompted questions from the audience, many of whom agreed that growers are already sustainable and didn't see then need for sustainability metrics, but others countered that a consistent measure would verify and provide data for continual improvement.The audience then heard from Hal Hamilton, co-director of the Sustainable Food Lab, Hank Giclas, senior vice president of strategic planning, science……  » Read more

United Fresh Product Awards

Awards were handed out Thursday afternoon for the Best New Products at United Fresh 2010. Winners were selected by ballot.The Best New Packing/Packaging Equipment Award went to Giro Pack for its Ultrabagger.The Best New Food Safety Solution Award went to YottaMark for its VoiceCode system.The Best New Fruit Product Award went to Chiquita's Fresh and Ready Avocados.The Best New Vegetable Product Award went to Ready Pac Foods Bistro Bowl Salads.Congratulations to the winners.…  » Read more

Fresh-Cut Research, Take 2

The food safety pavilion at United Fresh 2010 offered researchers the chance to talk about projects, and some had implications for processors. Charles Forney with the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre in Kentville, Nova Scotia, spoke about the impact that packaging films can have on the taste of fresh-cut apple slices. The research group looked at perforated versus solid film bags and looked at the chemical effects of the bags and each treatment was judged by a taste panel. The Gala apple slices in the perforated bags had higher levels of esters, the flavor compounds. The taste panel found apples in perforated bags to have a fruitier aroma, a fruitier taste and were sweeter, despite there being no change in soluble solids.Trevor Suslow from the University of California, Davis, spoke about some of the lessons learned from GAP field research. Some of the findings……  » Read more

Fresh-Cut Research Projects

A full ballroom at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas heard about two interesting research projects that could have implications for the fresh-cut produce industry.Alan Lefcourt with USDA's Agricultural Research Service presented his team's work on a laser imaging system that could one day be mounted to a tractor that would drive through a field and identify fecal material on the soil and plants, as well as areas that animal intrusions. The system will need to be interactive, adjustable, allow for false positives, be able to detect one fecal deer pellet and keep a complete visual record.So far, Lefcourt's system uses a laser with expansion optics and a gated camera to record the exposure times. The laser system is currently in the lab stage, but the next stage will be to take it out into the field on a cart to see if it works.……  » Read more