<FONT color=blue>[Online Extra:]</FONT> Fresh Facts on Pearson Foods

Green Giant Fresh, marketed by The Sholl Group II based in Minneapolis, contracts with produce plants across the Americas for the processing of its fresh fruits and vegetables. One of its several primary co-packers is Pearson Foods in Grand Rapids, Mich., a key quality provider for Green Giant Fresh.

Protecting the Produce

• A sample of every product run every day is kept on the hold back shelf, where its quality is tested and monitored. In this way, if a customer calls with a problem, Pearson Foods can pull its own sample and determine if they are seeing the same thing or if the quality of the produce may have been compromised during transportation or on the grocer’s shelf.
• Pearson Foods spends up to $400,000 per year on microbial product testing, hold and release testing, and environmental testing.
• The grocery store shelf life on Pearson Foods cut crisp vegetables is set at 10 to 14 days — which is a period of up to a full week less then the actual tested timeframe, ensuring that all produce maintains top quality and freshness throughout the labeled shelf life.

Growing Sprouts

Started as an enterprising home-based “college fund,” Pearson Foods sprout business now harvests a daily crop of up to 16,000 pounds of bean, broccoli, alfalfa, clover, radish, onion and garlic sprouts. The second largest retail sprout grower in the U.S. by volume, Pearson Foods has come a long way in both size and food safety.

• To reduce the chance of cross contamination, the sprouts are grown in hydroponic rooms isolated from the main processing area, with access limited and hand and shoe wash stations between the areas.
• The sprouts require continuous monitoring of numerous environmental variables, including air temperature, water temperature and air circulation.
• The labeled shelf life on sprouts is highly dependent on its harvested quality. For example, if the sprouts appear healthy but not hardy, they may be labeled with a 10-day freshness period rather than the more standard 14 days.
• The bean sprout seeds are planted in bins in a green-lit, environmentally controlled room, with 250 pounds of seeds to a bin, each of which yields about 1,000 pounds of sprouts — approximately nine sprouts per seed — after its five-day growth cycle. Each seed yields eight to nine sprouts.
• Pearson’s quality specifications include a minimum length of 2 ½ inches and diameter of .038 inch. 
• Along with the bean sprouts, Pearson also harvests specialty sprouts including alfalfa, onion and broccoli sprouts, which are grown in rotating, ventilated, automatically irrigated drums. The rotation of the drums keeps the sprouts from clumping into balls.
• Sprouts are subject to a four-day testing hold and release, with harvest conducted only once all tests have returned as negative and the quality assurance manager the only person authorized to release the sprouts.

Pearson Foods

• With production based primarily on manual rather than automated processes, the Pearson plant in Grand Rapids, Mich., employs 146 line workers on its tables.
• The plant puts out 600,000 pounds of fresh-cut vegetables each week.
• Fresh-cut, water-packed carrot and celery sticks are among Pearson’s top-selling items.
• Because of the perishable nature of fresh produce, it is critical the product be produced quickly and efficiently. It is a requisite that becomes even more critical with fresh-cut fruits and vegetables because every time a piece of produce is cut and its size reduced, it shelf-life is also reduced.
• The parameters of the water at which the fruits and vegetables are chilled and held is a critical point, with temperature and pH automatically monitored and constantly checked. Vice President of Marketing Sandra Pearson sees it as a piece of dynamite — TNT … Time and Temperature.

Green Giant Fresh/The Sholl Group II

• The Jolly Green Giant was first introduced in 1925 to help market an unusually large pea. In 1950 the company officially became the Green Giant Company. In 1973, the Green Giant got a little assistant called "Little Green Sprout."
• The Jolly Green Giant was ranked by Advertising Age magazine as the third most recognizable advertising character of the century's top 10 ad icons behind only Ronald McDonald and the Marlboro Man.
• Though the Green Giant logo was purchased by Pillsbury in 1979, and its canned products now produced by General Mills in Montgomery, Minn., the community of Le Sueur, Minn., where the company originated is still known locally as the "Valley of the Jolly Green Giant," where a large billboard with "Welcome to the Valley" and the Green Giant logo remain.
• The Sholl Group II is the marketer of the Green Giant Fresh brand. Founded in 1995 by Jeff Sholl and based in Minneapolis, the Sholl Group also includes Colorful Harvest LLC, Monterey, Calif., and Potandon Produce LLC, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
• In 2006, The Sholl Group fresh produce interests moved 31 million cases of Green Giant Fresh branded products and more than 13 million cases of non-Green Giant items.
• In addition to its fresh-cut line, The Sholl Group re-introduced the Green Giant Freshtables brand in April 2007 with a line of fresh vegetables and chef-created sauces, sold in a microwavable steaming bag.