News and Stories

Markon’s suppliers of Ready-Set-Serve (RSS) salads and tender leaf items have successfully moved their processing operations from Salinas, California to Yuma, Arizona over the last few days and are nearly back to full production.

Some value-added items are exhibiting sporadic quality issues similar to what Markon inspectors have been observing in commodity iceberg and leaf lettuce items. These problems include, but are not limited to the following (see attached pictures):

Iceberg

• Core material
• Dense texture/occasional chunks
• Growth cracking
• Internal burn

Romaine

• Dark green in color
• Fringe burn on outer leaves
• Light leaf density requiring more volume per bag
• Limited rib material

Harvesting and processing crews are taking measures to reduce or eliminate as many of the above-mentioned defects as possible, but won’t be able to completely remove them until raw product quality improves.

Due to the continued issue of dark green romaine raw product that requires more volume to meet bag weight requirements, RSS Chopped Romaine 6/2# and Romaine Ribbons 6/2# will remain in clear film for approximately 10 to 15 more days. Packing in clear film allows production crews to extend the length of the bag and eliminate the chance of product getting trapped in the seals, which can be detrimental to shelf-life.

Please contact your Markon customer service representative for more information.

John Galvez

Quality Assurance

markon.com

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