Hazel Technologies, Inc., a USDA-funded technology company delivering new solutions for fresh produce to extend shelf-life, increase sales, and fight food waste announces five years of quality protection collaboration with Homestead, FL-based Brooks Tropicals, a grower/packer/shipper of over a dozen tropical commodities including starfruit, SlimCado® avocados, Caribbean Red® papayas, limes, passion fruit, and dragon fruit.
Founded in the early 1900s, Brooks Tropicals started as a father-son duo growing avocados, grapefruit, limes, and mangos. The company continued to expand when the farm started transporting avocados to New York City in 1928. Since their inception, Brooks Tropicals has become one of the largest importers of tropical produce to the East Coast of the United States.
Brooks Tropicals was the first grower to utilize Hazel Tech® products to extend the shelf-life of fresh produce. They wanted to explore Hazel’s options in quality advancements for their extensive tropical fruit portfolio and found that starfruit in particular greatly benefited from the technology. Brooks Tropicals trialed Hazel’s flagship technology, Hazel 100™ and found that, when incorporating Hazel’s products into their supply chain, eight days of shelf-life were added to their starfruit as well as overall retention of the exterior and interior color of the fruit.
The success of Hazel’s starfruit trial with Brooks Tropical has led to additional academic studies, including the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Florida who completed extensive research with Hazel products on seven different tropical fruit commodities during the past year.
“Over the last five years, we have seen consistent results with Hazel on our starfruit,” commented Peter Leifermann, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Brooks Tropicals. “The additional week added to the fruit’s shelf-life has allowed us to ship and sell our starfruit to more consumers across the United States.”
“As the first company to partner with Hazel Tech, Brooks Tropicals was, in essence, one of the first believers in Hazel Technologies and our mission to reduce food waste,” commented Aidan Mouat CEO, Hazel Technologies, “They have continued grow alongside Hazel and their trust in our product speaks volumes on Hazel’s abilities and its reliability when it comes to enhancing the quality of fresh produce.”
