Dashboard dining gets a new player

Add grapes to the growing list of fresh-cut produce showing up in high-impact, graphically appealing, consumer-friendly, convenience-oriented packages found at the local supermarket.

Single-serve "grapes on the vine" from Welch Foods of Concord, MA, are now rolling out nationwide. The 5-oz portions retail for $1.75. Refrigerated shelf life is 17 days for red grapes, 12 days for green.

Detailed material specs are considered proprietary, says Paul Klutes, product manager of new ventures at Welch Foods. "It took us about two years to get where we are, so if anybody wants to follow, let them go through what we went through," he says.

Klutes does acknowledge that modified atmosphere packaging technology from FreshXtend Technologies Corp. played a key role in delivering the extended shelf life. As with most fresh-cut produce, the whole idea is to come up with a container whose permeability lets the live produce continue to respire. Klutes also indicates that the cups are manually filled at Country Fresh, a co-manufacturer in Orlando, FL, and that a flexible film lidding is heat-sealed to the filled cup before the rigid lid is snapped on.

Appealing film labels adorn the lid and the cup’s sidewalls. Secondary packaging, for now at least, is basic stuff that stays in the back room of the supermarket. But secondary packaging designed with consumers in mind—including a four-pack carrier for club stores—is on the horizon.

The initial launch, Klutes adds, will be followed by additional cup sizes and fruits other than grapes.