A Slice of Flavor
Achieving year-round, consistent quality in fresh vegetable varieties has been a perennial goal of seed companies. One seed company, Seminis, believes it has made strides toward achieving that goal.
The company is combining new varieties using genetic marker platforms, grower practices and a supply system, all designed to provide superior produce at all times, starting with melons and then moving into tomatoes and other crops.
“One of the primary challenges is how do we combine the aspects of yield and balance, that with the flavor, consumers are looking for,” said Sekhar Boddupalli, consumer research and development lead for Seminis, which is owned by Monsanto.
The year-round aspect is critical to the company, Boddupalli said, and will be accomplished by establishing partnerships with growers around the world to ensure a consistent supply.
“If a retailer needs a year-round, consistent supply, you can’t have one particular geography meet that expectation,” he said. “You need to expand your global footprint to produce the same variety in different locations and with different disease packages.”
If successful, the system could help solve the problem of consumers shying away from produce during the offseason due to substandard taste and quality.
“This happens for one simple reason: to ship from offshore we require longer shelf life. Longer shelf life significantly impacts food quality,” Boddupalli said. He explained that the LSL (long shelf life) varieties are very sturdy but can fall short in taste, aroma and color.
Watermelons in the Seminis program will be marketed under the Summerslice brand, while cantaloupes will be branded as Melorange. Ventero is the tomato variety.
“Summerslice and Melorange are concepts, not necessarily one variety. So there could be several different varieties for California versus Arizona, let’s say. But you still have one product concept. Ventero is a specific variety name and one specific tomato,” said Carly Scaduto, vegetable communications manager for Seminis/Monsanto.
Bodupalli said the melons have the same shipping capability as market-standard LSL varieties, but with superior aroma and taste, according to consumer studies.
Quality challenges also exist for the fresh-cut market, Bodupalli said. After a day or two, tomato slices tend to disintegrate and create a “wagon wheel” effect.
“The stuff falls apart and there’s no flesh integrity,” he said. “And the tomato falls apart on the sandwich or the burger. We now have in the pipeline prototypes (probably three or four years away) of an easy-slice tomato with flesh integrity, but also with size and color that brings a beautiful package of excellent eating quality and appearance along with flesh integrity that helps the tomatoes stay on a burger or a sandwich.”
The same kind of product development is taking place with watermelons, he said, with varieties scheduled to arrive “in the next year or two” that have outstanding processing characteristics for fresh-cut Summerslice melons. The melons have good size and eating quality and do not leak into cups or other packages, he added.
The new brands and varieties have already been introduced in Europe, and Seminis is now assembling a grower and shipper network to serve the United States market, although a Melorange cantaloupe product has been available at Sam’s Club for the past two seasons, sometimes sold in two packs.
Seminis is working on ways to apply the same combination of varieties, locations and supply systems so they can be duplicated for other crops, including peppers and lettuce.
