Classic Salads Puts Not-So-Classic Twist On Dinnerware

Classic Salads knows its stuff when it comes to spring mixes and spinach. Now, the company’s moving on to some not-so-classic items to spice up the produce offerings for the country’s foodservice institutions and retailers.

The latest of these new products are lettuce bowls – bowls made out of iceberg lettuce heads. The bowls would make a good fit for high-end restaurants, said Lex Camany, sales manager for Classic Salads.

The lettuce bowls add a different kind of twist to lettuce wraps and are gaining interest from different segments of the industry. The bowls, which are half-heads of lettuce, are four inches to seven inches and ship in 16- to 18-count cartons with 104 cartons per pallet to foodservice outlets.

The bowls are ready to use.

Classic Salads also offers Looseleaf Iceberg, which can be used in products from burgers to salads.

In addition to lettuce bowls and Looseleaf, Classic Salads also offers a variety of pre-cut products in foodservice packs: shredded lettuce, chopped cabbages, broccoli florets, cut carrots and chopped onions.

Another new item in the product lineup is fresh-cut fruit, which includes strawberries, cantaloupe, melon blends, berry blends and tropical fruits. Though they’re not fresh-cut, chocolate-dipped strawberries from Classic Salads are quite popular as well.

Among the spring mix and salad blends are specialty salads; chicory; spinach; single, loose baby greens; arugula; and baby head lettuce. Classic Salads also is known for its selection of heirloom tomato varieties: Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Striped German and Rose.

“We’re best known for spring mixes and spinaches because of the shelf-life and quality,” Camany said.

Camany went on to describe the company’s distribution and delivery channel, which he said has allowed the company to continue its growth.

Classic Salads is known among its customers to be reliable and consistent.

“It gives your customers security to know they’ll be taken care of in the Classic family,” he said. “It’s very personal, and people like that family way of being treated.”

Positive customer experience is important for Classic Salads’ marketing program. Camany said the most important tool for them is word-of-mouth.

“People see the label in the store and experience high quality and the lack of shrink, and that tends to spread word-of-mouth,” he said. “Once they experience that, then it’s a reliable and consistent program for them.

“It’s a very competitive marketplace for you to stand out in, and we’re getting a lot of good press as far as the end consumer. That’s exciting for us.”

Beyond Classic Salads’ growth, Camany said he sees a lot of potential for all fresh-cut companies.

“The continued growth rate is showing the trend of the industry,” he said. “Salads, in general, are continually growing for the industry, and more and more people are going to the product lines we tend to handle.”

It’s all about ease for the consumer.

Users of fresh-cut – from restaurants to households – are buying the product because they don’t have to go through prep times and they know the product is safe.

“They’re getting good, wholesome meals,” Camany said.

Though Classic Salads has found success with many of its products, sometimes things don’t work out. All companies, in one way or another, find something that just doesn’t work. Classic Salads had that with a living micromix. This product was shipped alive in living plugs. But when it was shipped to the East Coast, Classic Salads learned that the growing media flaked off. The cost to grow and ship this product was much higher than other products the company had.

“The volume didn’t substantiate the investment to make that program work out,” Camany said.

Safety and Quality

Fresh-cut salads give customers a safer product. Classic Salads’ growers all use GAPs, which are monitored in the fields. The company also is AIB and USDA certified.

“Food safety is the most important goal and company achievement that our owner wanted to strive for,” Camany said.

Classic Salads uses a third-party auditor but also does in-house monitoring with its own quality assurance team.

What makes a food safety program successful?

“Once you set the program up, you have to abide by the rules you make,” he said.

To assure the highest quality product, Classic Salads’ quality control department has no problem turning away sub-par product from its growers.

With many of its customers on the East Coast, Classic Salads has to pay close attention to shelf life. Once products come into the plant, it will be four to five days before they reach their final destination, so the growers for Classic Salads harvest daily and pack to order.

The company has growers spread across three areas to protect itself. If hail destroys the crops in one area, the other two areas would still have a crop.

“It’s about consistency in volume, quality and delivering a superior product,” Camany said.

Most of Classic Salads’ customers provide their own trucks for shipment from the plant, but Classic Salads has its own refrigerated vans to cool the product between the field and the plant. Product is brought in from growers’ fields every three hours.

A Growing Business

When it comes right down to it, Classic Salads is a growing business – and a business about growing. The farmers who work with the company play an important role in its success, and Camany said it’s important for the industry as a whole to remember that.

“The problem is, to me, the farmer is always the one getting the short end of the stick,” he said. “We, as shippers, have to be responsible to farmers because this country was made on back of farmers.”

Returns to growers, Camany said, are getting smaller and smaller, which is forcing some to get out of the business all together.

“We’re losing sight of the hand that feeds us,” Camany said. “If we all went without food for a week, we’d all appreciate the farmer.”

One way to combat this would be for the industry to come together and work with each other. Camany can see a program that brings together every member of the spring mix industry being a successful tool in understanding where the food comes from and where it goes. A co-op like this not only would get growers working together, but would allow for greater appreciation on behalf of all parties involved.

A Brief History

Classic Salads began as Lance Batistich Farms in1983 in Watsonville, Calif. In 1988, the company became Classic Farms and moved to 2,500 acres in Salinas, Calif. The company formed Classic Baby Vegetables in 1997 after finding success with spring mix and baby spinach, which led to the creation of Classic Salads in 2000. The first retail line of spring mix was launched in 2003, and in 2004 Classic Salads began offering baby gourmet specialty items, including fresh-cut fruits and vegetables to foodservice and retail customers.

For more information on Classic Salads, visit the company’s newly created Web site at www.classicsalads.com.
Lettuce Bowls are a trademarked item of Classic Salads with a patent pending.