What mental image does the word “technology” conjure up for you? Perhaps a seeder or the tractor it’s attached to? Maybe that new bagger? Your computer or cell phone? What about ChatGPT?
Did you think about data or how it’s gathered? Or perhaps that new process you heard about from a neighbor? Or the engineering that goes into a strawberry clamshell? What about the results of pickers working in the shade?
Those all impact efficiency and offer the opportunity for ongoing improvement, making them technology too, and they have had — and will continue to have — big impacts on the fresh produce industry.
Hardware Side of Produce Tech
The infrastructure of an operation — the physical, often large, examples of technology — has very literal impacts on the fresh produce industry. For example, Happy Dirt — a produce distributor with 16 farmer owners across North Carolina — has recently begun using high tunnels in a lot of its farms to extend the growing season of its heirloom tomatoes, reduce disease pressure on its strawberries and to generally protect crops from the uncertain and often extreme weather of the Carolinas.
Taylor Holenbeck, grower services coordinator for Happy Dirt, said that increasing this sort of on-farm infrastructure has “really helped consistency and quality of those specialty crops.”
Sometimes, the technology is the farm — literally — as in the case of container farming. In this small-scale version of vertical farming, the whole unit, which is often built inside refurbished shipping containers, is a self-contained piece of technology that allows for growing fresh produce out of season or in otherwise inhospitable places.
More often, however, big, physical technology in the produce industry looks more like a laser weeder or optical sorters — tools that don’t replace jobs, per se, but make the work easier and, importantly, more comfortable for workers.
“I think what people don’t realize about fresh produce is a lot of it is still hand-harvested, and some of that requires bending over and having a posture that’s not super comfortable,” explained Jeana Cadby, environment and climate director for Western Growers Association, which represents fresh produce farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico.
“If there’s a way where technology can step in and not replace their job, but make it more comfortable — maybe they’re now in a shaded area and they’re putting things in packaging as opposed to bending over and harvesting — that is a major upgrade.”
Big, physical forms of technology can also open new markets for produce growers. For example, North Carolina’s Tendwell Farm co-owner Steven Beltram said that the farm has seen enough demand for specialty grape tomatoes that it is putting in an optical sorter this summer. He said it will speed up tomato sorting and allow for seven sizes and different colors to meet specific consumer demands.
Package Makes the Produce
Like big pieces of infrastructure, packaging also can help create new markets for produce. For example, the convenience of simply putting fresh produce in bags can spur consumers to purchase.
“It started right before COVID, and then COVID just put it on steroids because nobody wanted to go into the grocery store and hang out there and go through fruit,” said John McGuigan, director of industry affairs for the Hass Avocado Board. “They were just picking up a bag and going.”
This dynamic of bagged fruit has helped the avocado industry tackle a pressing issue it is facing: smaller fruit across the board.
“For 15 years, the #48 has been the bread and butter of the retail business of avocados selling in the U.S.,” McGuigan said. “That used to be the center of the size curve, and the size curve is definitely shifting down one size to the #60s.”
But smaller avocados fit nicely in bags, and now roughly a quarter of avocados are sold in bags.
“We have seen double-digit growth in bags,” he said.
Packaging can also change a piece of produce from the perspective of consumer use. While a potato could just be one among many in a bulk bin, with specific packaging, it suddenly becomes a single-serve, value-added microwaveable meal, for example. And there is growing demand from consumers for these sorts of value-added and convenience-oriented produce products.
“Convenience is a huge demand for society today,” said Robin Narron, marketing director and sales support for Nash Produce, a Nashville, N.C.-based fresh produce packer, shipper and marketer.
“People are still trying to eat healthy, whether it’s the grocery shopping or doing things more efficiently and quicker, so that’s where some of these new packaging materials come in handy,” she said.
This is Part 1 of a two-part story on tech innovation in produce. Stay tuned for Part 2 in The Packer’s Thursday , June 19 PM newsletter.
