March - A 2007 View On Prepackaged Produce

By Mark Ritenour, Jeffrey Brecht, and Steven Sargent

WHILE all produce is not yet prepackaged, as predicted in the early 1960s, the use of various types and materials of packaging continues to develop and expand. Individually shrink-wrapped cucumbers, shrink-wrapped trays of sweetcorn and tomatoes, and lettuce, celery, and carrots in plastic film bags are now common.

However, the largest increase in prepackaging has come with the tremendous expansion in fresh-cut sales. Here, high-quality product is harvested, placed in large bulk bins, and transported to processing plants where it is trimmed, cooled, cleaned, peeled and/or cut, and placed into one of a large number of possible packages, most of which consist of semipermeable plastic film that creates a modified atmosphere to help maintain freshness. The packaging used for fresh-cut products also protects against contamination and allows several different cut commodities to be combined into one consumer package. In 2006, produce prepackaged as fresh-cut accounted for about 16% of all supermarket produce department sales.

Jeffrey Brecht and Steven Sargent are in the Horticultural Sciences Department;
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; Mark Ritenour is at the Indian River
Research & Education Center, Ft. Pierce, FL; MRitenour@mail.ifas.ufl.edu