New Tanimura & Antle Rootless Hydroponic Butter Lettuce Improves Delivery Efficiency

The new sleeker clamshell is specially designed for this new rootless head of lettuce. The clamshell serves to protect the lettuce and maintain product quality from harvest to shelf.

Feb 3 2012 --- Tanimura & Antle is excited to introduce a new product from their Tennessee Hydroponic Facility Hydroponic Butter Lettuce. This hydroponically grown butter lettuce variety is harvested and packed with its roots removed. Packaged in a smaller compact clamshell, this greenhouse grown lettuce is packaged to deliver 35% more product per pallet in an attractive retail package with a new forward facing tamper evident label.

“Our study evaluating shelf life of lettuce with roots attached vs. roots off showed no difference between the two,” commented Gurmail Mudahar, VP of Food Safety and QA. The product is greenhouse grown and harvested at the same stage of maturity as Living Lettuce Tanimura & Antle’s hydroponic lettuce product that’s packaged with the roots attached. Diana McClean, Director of Marketing, adds "While both products deliver a 16-day shelf life, consumer and customer preference will determine which product is delivered to retail stores.”

The new sleeker clamshell is specially designed for this new rootless head of lettuce. The clamshell serves to protect the lettuce and maintain product quality from harvest to shelf. The informative colorful label faces forward for ease of merchandising and serves as a tamper evident seal.

“We wanted to increase our line of greenhouse grown lettuces and offer a value option to our retail customer,” commented Rick Antle, CEO, “plus consumers have expressed interest in a cleaner product presentation. Once we discovered the shelf life and product quality were the same for lettuce with or without roots, we realized that we had a fairly easy alternative product offering out of Tennessee.”