Happy Reading!
Kirsten
The Origin and Evolution of Baby
Carrots
In the 1980's supermarkets expected carrots to be a particular size, shape, and color. Anything else had to be sold for juice or processing or animal feed, or just thrown away. One farmer wondered what would happen if he peeled the skin off the gnarly carrots, cut them into pieces, and sold them in bags. He made up a few test batches to show his buyers. One batch, cut into 1-inch bites and peeled round, he called "bunny balls." Another batch, peeled and cut 2 inches long, looked like little baby carrots.
Bunny balls never made it. But baby carrots were a hit. They transformed the whole industry.
A "true" baby carrot is a carrot grown to the "baby stage", which is to say long before the root reaches its mature size. The test is can you see a pr
oper "shoulder" on each carrot. These immature roots are preferred by
some people out of the belief that they are superior either in texture,
nutrition or taste. They are also sometimes harvested simply as the result of crop thinning, but are also grown to this size as a specialty crop. Certain cultivars of carrots have been bred to be used at the "baby" stage. One such cultivar is 'Amsterdam Forcing'. You will see them in the stores and are normally very expensive and displayed with some of the green showing to "prove" they are a "real" carrot.
There is also a baby variety called Thumbelina, or Paris Market shaped like a golf ball.
 |
| Tired of the wastefulness he was seeing, Mike Yurosek whittled "babies" from grown-up cast off carrots. |
"Manufactured" baby carrots , or cut and peel, are what you see most often in the shops - are carrot shaped slices of peeled carrots invented in the late 1980's by Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, as a way of making use of carrots which are too twisted or knobbly for sale as full-size carrots. Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tons of carrots a day because of their imperfections, and looked for a way to reclaim what would otherwise be a waste product. He was able to find an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into 5 cm lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the baby carrot. The much decreased waste is also used either for juicing or as animal fodder. Perhaps most important, the baby-cut method allows growers to use far more of the carrot than they used to. In the past, a third or more of a carrot crop could have been easily tossed away, but baby-cut allows more partial carrots to be used, and the peeling process actually removes less of the outer skin that you might imagine. They are sold in single-serving packs with ranch dressing for dipping on the side. They're passed out on airplanes and sold in plastic containers designed to fit in a car's cup holder. At Disney World, and McDonald's burgers now come two ways: with fries or baby carrots.
There is nothing "wrong" with manufactured baby carrots. They are a food that humans have enjoyed for centuries, probably millennia, chock-full of goodness that we need to keep our bodies functioning. Mr Yurosek died in 2005. Read the full story here.
Transformed to the core The baby-cut boom also transformed the industry from its roots up. Before, growers were more interested in a bulky carrot with more of a tapered shape. But those were hard to chop into baby shape, so plant breeders worked to create varieties that were longer and narrower, allowing a producer to get four cuts instead of three on each carrot root, which is the part of the plant we eat.
They also found they could limit the diameter size of carrots by increasing the density with which they were planted — a discovery that helped them harvest more carrots per acre. (This sort of change wasn’t new for carrot growers: Up to the 1950s, when carrots were sold with their leaves intact, they were bred for hearty leaf growth. That stopped after grocers started selling just roots.)
Today’s carrot is also now bred for uniform color. Because
the cutting process exposes much of the root to the buyer’s eye, producers don’t
want their bags of carrots to be colored like a paint palette. With baby
carrots or cut-and-peel carrots, you can see the core of every chunk,. The
growers would like every carrot in that bag to look like every other one.
Growers also obsess about texture and taste. You might find carrots far sweeter
than they were in the past, and that’s intentional. Researchers found much of
their appeal as a snack came from their sweetness, especially for perennially
sweet-toothed kids, and bred them to have more natural sugar and less of the
harsh taste that comes if you do a poor job of peeling.
The new varieties’ names reflect the change in growers’
needs: Prime Cut, Sweet Cuts, Morecuts.
What is perhaps most important, the baby-cut method allows growers to use far more of the carrot than they used to. In the past, a third or more of a carrot crop could have been easily tossed away, but baby-cut allows more partial carrots to be used, and the peeling process actually removes less of the outer skin that you might imagine — in part because growers, who are selling by weight, don’t want to take off more than they need to.
And what’s left over after the initial processing can still be used in even smaller products, or squeezed for juice.
There is no doubt that baby carrots are a fun snack and are a great way to introduce healthy foods into the often French fry and fast food driven diets of children and teenagers, because from the snacking perspective, they are convenient and satisfying. Even in the busiest jobs, like agents working in a business answering service or doctors treating patients at a hospital, the baby carrot has almost universal appeal. Want a little crunch with your lunch? Try a carrot!
What happens to the left over pieces of carrots?
It mainly goes to animal feed, though I also know of some, where it can go to juice and for pulping into baby foods/soups etc. There seems to be two attitudes - 1. it is "waste" (for animal feed). 2. It has a commercial value and is passed on to the food processing industry.
The problem is that the cutting down/shaving process is designed to do just that, it is rarely commercially viable to ensure the shavings are collected effectively to remain clean and safe to pass on to the food industry. It's ok for animals!.
Because it is not a consistent left over, in terms of size, the cuttings do not go to salads or other fresh products. The carrot cake producers buy shredded carrot made from whole big carrots as it easier to process that way and you get more for your money.
The "waste" is becoming less and less as the machines get more efficient. For example many of the modern computer/laser guided machines can make 3 babies out of one carrot.
Some Statistics:
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In the US over 172 million tonnes of carrots are processed into baby peeled carrots. |
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In the US baby peeled carrots sales exceed US$400 million per annum. |
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Overall carrot consumption in the US has increased by 33% through the introduction of baby peeled carrots. |
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In the US annual consumer spending on baby peeled carrots exceeds US$2.00 per head. |
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In 1999 baby peeled carrot purchases passed whole carrots. 94% of US consumers purchased baby peeled carrots |
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90% had bought whole carrots. Purchases of baby peeled carrots were even ahead of fresh salad mixes. |
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Baby peeled carrots have the lion's share of the carrot category accounting for over 80% of all retail carrot sales. |
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Up until 2000 baby carrots have
dominated US produce department's with excellent growth ahead of all other
produce items.
|
 |
In the field, two-story carrot harvesters use long metal
prongs to open up the soil, while rubber belts grab the green tops and pull.
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The carrots ride up the belts to the top of the picker, where
an automated cutter snips off the greens.
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They're trucked to the processing plant, where they're put in
icy water to bring their temperature down to 37 degrees to inhibit spoiling.
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They are sorted by thickness.
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Thin carrots continue on the processing line; the others will
be used as whole carrots, juice or cattle feed.
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An inspector looks for rocks, debris or malformed carrots that
slip through.
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The carrots are shaped into 2-inch pieces by automated
cutters.
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An optical sorter discards any piece that has green on it.
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The pieces are pumped through pipes to the peeling tanks.
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The peelers rotate, scraping the skin off the carrots.
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The carrots are weighed and bagged by an automated scale and
packager.
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Finally placed in cold storage until they are shipped.
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Real baby carrots (miniature version of full size) are what they are, about 3 or 4 inches in length.
Baby "style" cut carrots (those whittled down from larger carrots) started off by the "inventor" as being approx 2 inches in the 1980's, and have remained so, more or less, ever since.
Here is the full story of the popular Baby
Cut & Peel carrot:
It all began in the mid 80's ago when Mike Yurosek of Newhall, California got
tired of seeing 400 tons of carrots a day drop down the cull chute at his
packing plant in Bakersfield. Culls are carrots that are too twisted, knobbly,
bent or broken to sell. In some loads, as many as 70% of carrots were tossed.
Yurosek had always been a "think outside the carrot patch" guy. In the 1960s, Yurosek and Sons was selling
carrots in plastic bags with a
Bunny-Luv logo, a cartoon that got the farmers in trouble with Warner Bros.,
which was protective of its Bugs Bunny brand. Instead of bringing in lawyers and
spending a fortune, Yurosek recalls, "I said to my wife who is a pretty good
drawer, 'Hey, draw me up about 50 bunnies, would you? Then we'll send them to
Warner Bros. and ask them to tell us which ones we can use.' "
The entertainment giant picked one, and Bunny-Luv lived on for the price of a
pencil. The farmer continued growing carrots, and throwing them out, for
decades. But in 1986, Yurosek had the idea that would change American munching
habits. California's Central Valley is dotted with farms, fruit and vegetable
processors, and freezing plants. Yurosek knew full well that freezers routinely
cut up his long, well-shaped carrots into cubes, coins and mini-carrots. "If
they can do that, why can't we, and pack 'em fresh?" he wondered.
First he had to cut the culls into something small enough to make use of their straight parts. The first batch was done in a potato peeler and cut by hand. Then he found a frozen-food company that was going out of business and bought an industrial green-bean cutter, which just happened to cut things into 2-inch pieces. Thus was born the standard size for a baby carrot.
Next, he sent one of his workers to a packing plant and loaded the cut-up carrots into an industrial potato peeler to take off the peel and smooth down the edges. What he ended up with was a little rough but still recognizable as the baby carrot of today.
After a bit of practice and an investment in some bagging machinery, he called one of his best customers, a Vons supermarket in Los Angeles. "I said, 'I'm sending you some carrots to see what you think.' Next day they called and said, 'We only want those.' "
The babies were an economic powerhouse. Stores paid 10 cents a bag for whole carrots and sold them for 17 cents. They paid 50 cents for a 1-pound package of baby carrots and sold them for $1. By 1989, more markets were on board, and the baby-carrot juggernaut had begun. Today, these "babies" come from one main place in the US: Bakersfield, California. The state produces almost three-
quarters of U.S. carrots because of
its favourable climate and deep, not-too-heavy soil. Every day, somewhere in the
state, carrots are either being planted or harvested (20 million pounds in
2006).
Which is why Bakersfield is home to the nation's top two carrot processors: Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms. In the early 1990s, Yurosek sold his company to rival Grimmway. The Bunny-Luv logo still can be found on Grimmway's organic carrots. But it's Bakersfield's other carrot producer, Bolthouse, that carries on the Yurosek tradition. Yurosek's grandson Derek is Bolthouse's director of agricultural operations.
The Industry calls them "Minis" and have brought about a carrot-breeding revolution, says the USDA's Simon, who also teaches horticulture at the University of Wisconsin. Carrots originally were sold in bulk, straight from the farm. The first advance was the "cello" carrot. Introduced in the 1950s, these were washed and sold in newfangled (at the time) cellophane bags. "Cello carrots had to look like a carrot, and that was enough," Simon says.
Enter the baby carrot. Suddenly carrots were "branded." Instead of just carrots, they were Bunny-Luv or Bolthouse or Grimmway carrots. Consumers could remember the name, and if they got a bad carrot, they wouldn't buy that particular brand any more. Breeders got to work, getting rid of woodiness and bitterness. They also bred for enhanced length, smoothness and a cylindrical quality that lets processors clip off as little of the tip as possible.
Balancing these with the desirable sweetness and juiciness is a delicate task, Simon says. The faintly bitter taste is essential to what makes a carrot taste like a carrot. "I've had carrots that have more of a flavour note of peas or corn," he says.
Get the carrot too juicy and it breaks in the field. "There are some carrot varieties so succulent they're amazing, but they're like glass," Simon says. "Consumers like juicy carrots, but if they're all broken, you can't sell them."
None of this was done with fancy genetic engineering. "You just grow lots of carrots and look at them and taste them," Simon says. Breeders started experimenting with seed from varieties culled in the past for being too long to fit into the plastic bag.
"Prior to baby carrots, the ideal length for a carrot was somewhere between 6 and 7 inches," Simon says. Now they're typically 8 inches long, a "three-cut" that can make three 2-inch babies. And breeders are edging toward fields of even longer carrots. "You make it a four-cut, and you've got a 33% yield increase," Simon says.
The baby-cut boom transformed the industry from its roots up. Before, growers were more interested in a bulky carrot with more of a tapered shape. But those were hard to chop into baby shape, so plant breeders worked to create varieties that were longer and narrower, allowing a producer to get four cuts instead of three on each carrot root, which is the part of the plant we eat. They also found they could limit the diameter size of carrots by increasing the density with which they were planted — a discovery that helped them harvest more carrots per acre. Mr Yurosek is often referred to as the "Father of Baby Carrots". By simply cutting carrots into 2-inch sections, he won a well-earned place in agricultural history. Equally deserved is his legacy in business lore. Yurosek transformed an industry by addressing a common problem. Whereas most growers focused their energies on production excellence, Yurosek addressed another ingredient required for success: customer relevance. Sadly he died of cancer in 2005.
Why is one little carrot so important?
Some children refuse to eat vegetables and many won’t touch a carrot unless it can be used as a sword during playtime. Sometimes it can feel like it’s just not worth the bother to try and feed them vegetables at every meal. But according to the World Health Organization, eating vegetables like carrots can help prevent blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency.
Vitamin A deficiency
partially or totally blinds nearly 350,000 children from more than 75 countries
every year. Roughly 60 percent of these children die within months of going
blind.
However, vitamin A deficiency is preventable. One cooked carrot has approximately 150% of the Recommended Daily Amount of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A. Vitamin A helps to prevent night blindness, dry skin, poor bone growth, weak tooth enamel, diarrhoea and slow growth.
The greatest health benefits come from eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The American Institute for Cancer Research has estimated that a diet high in a variety of fruits and vegetables may prevent 20 to 33 percent of lung cancers.
The cartenoids found in greens, broccoli and spinach may help protect against other cancers. Eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables supplies a whole range of nutrients, which provide the kind of protection originally attributed to betacarotene alone. Unfortunately, most children are not interested in cancer and disease prevention so it is parents who have to resort to sneaking nutrition in the foods kids love. And the Baby Carrot plays it part.
Over 40 brands are sold, marketed under such names as Premier and Bunny-Luv, and more modern names to reflect what the consumer wants, like Prime Cut, Sweet Cuts, Morecuts. The market now also covers things such as baby-cut but also sticks, chips, dipping packages, shredded carrots and juice. The Future Packaged carrot products have become so ubiquitous that the industry has levelled off in per-capita consumption. Americans are still eating 50 percent more carrots than they were, but ironically, the carrot has regained such an important position on the shopping list that some in the industry worry it could be losing its value as a premium product. (And some of that drop, they point out, could also be because peeled products actually offer more edible carrot per pound. Buying less doesn’t mean eating less.)
In 2009, after a decade of steady growth, Bolthouse's carrot sales went flat. Sales of baby carrots, the company's cash carrot, actually fell, sharply, and stayed down. Nobody knew why. This was a big problem. After a series of focus groups and surveys something interesting was discovered. People said they were eating as many carrots as they always had. But the numbers clearly showed they were buying fewer. What people meant, it turned out, was they were as likely as ever to keep carrots in the fridge. When the recession hit, though, they became more likely to buy regular carrots, instead of baby carrots, to save money. But people used to eating baby carrots weren't taking the time to wash and cut the regular ones. And unlike baby carrots, which dry out pretty quickly once a bag is opened, regular carrots keep a long time. So people were buying regular carrots and then not eating them, and not buying more until the carrots they had were finally gone or spoiled.
Bolthouse had never marketed its baby carrots. It just sent truckloads to supermarkets, where they got piled up in the produce aisle. A new advertising campaign was needed.
The concept was "To have a great advertising idea, you have to get at the truth of the product. The truth about baby carrots is they possess many of the defining characteristics of our favourite junk food. They're neon orange, they're crunchy, they're dippable, they're kind of addictive - They're just cool and part of your life. If Doritos can sell cheeseburger-flavoured Doritos, we can sell baby carrots." A new jazzy packaging portfolio was created, aimed primarily at junk food addicts and it soon became a roaring success.
$25m campaign to Get Kids to Eat Carrots by branding them like junk food - According to USA Today, a group of producers will unveil a sophisticated media campaign designed to drive a wedge between the munching public and our snack foods, a wedge in the shape of a carrot. This campaign will include repackaging carrots for school vending machines in bags that resemble Doritos (both orange, little-finger size, crunchy, so consumers probably won't even notice the difference, right?) (Left, Halloween "Scarrots" 2010)
What about the chlorine? Some carrots are washed with chlorinated water. This
water must have a pH (acidity) between 6.0 and 7.0. The concentration of
chlorine in the water should be between 100 and 150 ppm (parts per million). The
time of contact between the carrots and the chlorinated water should not exceed
5 minutes. This must be removed from the carrots by rinsing with potable water
or using a centrifugal drier. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency,
the use of chlorine as a antimicrobial treatment is a current accepted practice
in the processing for all fresh cut ready-to-eat vegetables.
This ‘Chlorine’ is most likely sodium hypochlorite also known as chlorine bleach. It is used as a disinfectant and antimicrobial in many industries. It is made by reacting a sodium hydroxide solution (also know as caustic soda or lye) with elemental chlorine gas. All of these chemicals are made from sodium chloride, also known as salt. Next time do some research look up cholera if you want a glimpse of what the world was like before the wide availability of chlorine disinfection!
Like other ready-to-eat fresh vegetables, baby-cut carrots are rinsed or sprayed with very diluted chlorine to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination, and then thoroughly washed and bagged. This process is approved by the FDA and accepted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, with strict rules for what concentration of chlorine can be used and how long the carrots can be exposed. Chlorine is similarly used as a disinfectant in public water supplies and sometimes in poultry processing. It is toxic at high concentrations, but there is no evidence that trace amounts left on food and in water are harmful to health.
Is this dangerous? Chlorination is a well-known and well-tested way to disinfect food products. Our tap water is chlorinated as well. When you disinfect something, that means that you kill the bacteria that are present. Chlorine kills bacteria. It can also kill us, or be very bad for us. The bleach you use to clean and disinfect your toilet, contains chlorine. Do not drink it. This will kill you because it is far more concentrated than we can safely ingest. The diluted chlorine in your tap water and in your baby-carrots, presents no proven danger whatsoever. It is precisely to make the carrots safe that the chlorine is used.
As a side-note, it is interesting to know that the term "chlorine" is something of a misnomer. Chlorine, in its natural state, is a highly reactive gas that forms compounds with other products. When chlorine is added to other products, it will react virtually immediately to form compounds such as hypochlorous acid (when chlorine is added to water) and sodium hypochlorite (when chlorine is added to a sodium hydroxide solution). These compounds in turn disinfect the water. When we talk about chlorine, and even about free chlorine, these compounds are usually what we are referring to.
Note: there are certain compounds of chlorine that do cause cancer. Does chlorine cause cancer? No. While medical science is not an exact science, and we must always be vigilant, there is at present no evidence whatsoever that chlorine causes cancer or could be a facilitator for cancer. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have not classified chlorine as to its human carcinogenicity.
The solution used to wash carrots is NOT the same as in swimming pools.
More on White Blush
It is caused by drying of the damaged (peeled) tissue as the
carrots are exposed to air. During storage air can dry out the surface of
carrots due to lack of humidity. The carrots may also shrivel due to the lack of
moisture. In contrast, whole carrots retain their protective peel, so it takes
longer for this problem to occur in them.
It is simply the carrot drying out. Try it out for yourself. Take a fresh, normal carrot and cut it in half. Wait. The same white covering (which is officially called white blush) will appear on the cut. Baby carrots will show a lot more white blush for a very simple reason: their skin has been removed and therefore, the entire carrot dries out. Methods of inhibiting the formation of white blush discoloration on freshly processed carrots.
When many fruits (i.e., apples, pears, peaches, avocados, and bananas) and vegetables (i.e., beans, potatoes, mushrooms and many root crops) are bruised, or are cut, peeled, or processed in any other way that causes tissue injury, a black or brown discoloration appears at the site of the tissue injury within a few minutes due to enzymes of the melanosis reaction. This discoloration problem has been the subject of much study, because of its obvious economic importance to the food processing industry.
Yurosek had always been a "think outside the carrot patch" guy. In the 1960s, Yurosek and Sons was selling
carrots in plastic bags with a
Bunny-Luv logo, a cartoon that got the farmers in trouble with Warner Bros.,
which was protective of its Bugs Bunny brand. Instead of bringing in lawyers and
spending a fortune, Yurosek recalls, "I said to my wife who is a pretty good
drawer, 'Hey, draw me up about 50 bunnies, would you? Then we'll send them to
Warner Bros. and ask them to tell us which ones we can use.' "
The entertainment giant picked one, and Bunny-Luv lived on for the price of a
pencil. The farmer continued growing carrots, and throwing them out, for
decades. But in 1986, Yurosek had the idea that would change American munching
habits. California's Central Valley is dotted with farms, fruit and vegetable
processors, and freezing plants. Yurosek knew full well that freezers routinely
cut up his long, well-shaped carrots into cubes, coins and mini-carrots. "If
they can do that, why can't we, and pack 'em fresh?" he wondered.First he had to cut the culls into something small enough to make use of their straight parts. The first batch was done in a potato peeler and cut by hand. Then he found a frozen-food company that was going out of business and bought an industrial green-bean cutter, which just happened to cut things into 2-inch pieces. Thus was born the standard size for a baby carrot.
Next, he sent one of his workers to a packing plant and loaded the cut-up carrots into an industrial potato peeler to take off the peel and smooth down the edges. What he ended up with was a little rough but still recognizable as the baby carrot of today.
After a bit of practice and an investment in some bagging machinery, he called one of his best customers, a Vons supermarket in Los Angeles. "I said, 'I'm sending you some carrots to see what you think.' Next day they called and said, 'We only want those.' "
The babies were an economic powerhouse. Stores paid 10 cents a bag for whole carrots and sold them for 17 cents. They paid 50 cents for a 1-pound package of baby carrots and sold them for $1. By 1989, more markets were on board, and the baby-carrot juggernaut had begun. Today, these "babies" come from one main place in the US: Bakersfield, California. The state produces almost three-
quarters of U.S. carrots because of
its favourable climate and deep, not-too-heavy soil. Every day, somewhere in the
state, carrots are either being planted or harvested (20 million pounds in
2006). Which is why Bakersfield is home to the nation's top two carrot processors: Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms. In the early 1990s, Yurosek sold his company to rival Grimmway. The Bunny-Luv logo still can be found on Grimmway's organic carrots. But it's Bakersfield's other carrot producer, Bolthouse, that carries on the Yurosek tradition. Yurosek's grandson Derek is Bolthouse's director of agricultural operations.
The Industry calls them "Minis" and have brought about a carrot-breeding revolution, says the USDA's Simon, who also teaches horticulture at the University of Wisconsin. Carrots originally were sold in bulk, straight from the farm. The first advance was the "cello" carrot. Introduced in the 1950s, these were washed and sold in newfangled (at the time) cellophane bags. "Cello carrots had to look like a carrot, and that was enough," Simon says.
Enter the baby carrot. Suddenly carrots were "branded." Instead of just carrots, they were Bunny-Luv or Bolthouse or Grimmway carrots. Consumers could remember the name, and if they got a bad carrot, they wouldn't buy that particular brand any more. Breeders got to work, getting rid of woodiness and bitterness. They also bred for enhanced length, smoothness and a cylindrical quality that lets processors clip off as little of the tip as possible.
Balancing these with the desirable sweetness and juiciness is a delicate task, Simon says. The faintly bitter taste is essential to what makes a carrot taste like a carrot. "I've had carrots that have more of a flavour note of peas or corn," he says.
Get the carrot too juicy and it breaks in the field. "There are some carrot varieties so succulent they're amazing, but they're like glass," Simon says. "Consumers like juicy carrots, but if they're all broken, you can't sell them."
None of this was done with fancy genetic engineering. "You just grow lots of carrots and look at them and taste them," Simon says. Breeders started experimenting with seed from varieties culled in the past for being too long to fit into the plastic bag.
"Prior to baby carrots, the ideal length for a carrot was somewhere between 6 and 7 inches," Simon says. Now they're typically 8 inches long, a "three-cut" that can make three 2-inch babies. And breeders are edging toward fields of even longer carrots. "You make it a four-cut, and you've got a 33% yield increase," Simon says.
The baby-cut boom transformed the industry from its roots up. Before, growers were more interested in a bulky carrot with more of a tapered shape. But those were hard to chop into baby shape, so plant breeders worked to create varieties that were longer and narrower, allowing a producer to get four cuts instead of three on each carrot root, which is the part of the plant we eat. They also found they could limit the diameter size of carrots by increasing the density with which they were planted — a discovery that helped them harvest more carrots per acre. Mr Yurosek is often referred to as the "Father of Baby Carrots". By simply cutting carrots into 2-inch sections, he won a well-earned place in agricultural history. Equally deserved is his legacy in business lore. Yurosek transformed an industry by addressing a common problem. Whereas most growers focused their energies on production excellence, Yurosek addressed another ingredient required for success: customer relevance. Sadly he died of cancer in 2005.
Why is one little carrot so important?
Some children refuse to eat vegetables and many won’t touch a carrot unless it can be used as a sword during playtime. Sometimes it can feel like it’s just not worth the bother to try and feed them vegetables at every meal. But according to the World Health Organization, eating vegetables like carrots can help prevent blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency.
Vitamin A deficiency
partially or totally blinds nearly 350,000 children from more than 75 countries
every year. Roughly 60 percent of these children die within months of going
blind. However, vitamin A deficiency is preventable. One cooked carrot has approximately 150% of the Recommended Daily Amount of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A. Vitamin A helps to prevent night blindness, dry skin, poor bone growth, weak tooth enamel, diarrhoea and slow growth.
The greatest health benefits come from eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The American Institute for Cancer Research has estimated that a diet high in a variety of fruits and vegetables may prevent 20 to 33 percent of lung cancers.
The cartenoids found in greens, broccoli and spinach may help protect against other cancers. Eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables supplies a whole range of nutrients, which provide the kind of protection originally attributed to betacarotene alone. Unfortunately, most children are not interested in cancer and disease prevention so it is parents who have to resort to sneaking nutrition in the foods kids love. And the Baby Carrot plays it part.
Over 40 brands are sold, marketed under such names as Premier and Bunny-Luv, and more modern names to reflect what the consumer wants, like Prime Cut, Sweet Cuts, Morecuts. The market now also covers things such as baby-cut but also sticks, chips, dipping packages, shredded carrots and juice. The Future Packaged carrot products have become so ubiquitous that the industry has levelled off in per-capita consumption. Americans are still eating 50 percent more carrots than they were, but ironically, the carrot has regained such an important position on the shopping list that some in the industry worry it could be losing its value as a premium product. (And some of that drop, they point out, could also be because peeled products actually offer more edible carrot per pound. Buying less doesn’t mean eating less.)
With that in mind, researchers are always looking for ways to
spice up the carrot. Producers want to darken the color of carrots, not just
for aesthetics but also because the deeper orange signals more beta-carotene, an
antioxidant that serves as one of the best sources of vitamin A, for which
carrots are renowned. Scientists are pushing the color curve -
producing white, red and purple carrots that are actually the colors of the
roots of carrots that were originally grown 1,000 years ago. The rainbow colors give growers
still more marketing options - especially for kids, who seem drawn to items that
look like someone was having fun with crayons - and could even be mixed together
in a variety pack. Look for a Rainbow Pack at a store near you!
In 2009, after a decade of steady growth, Bolthouse's carrot sales went flat. Sales of baby carrots, the company's cash carrot, actually fell, sharply, and stayed down. Nobody knew why. This was a big problem. After a series of focus groups and surveys something interesting was discovered. People said they were eating as many carrots as they always had. But the numbers clearly showed they were buying fewer. What people meant, it turned out, was they were as likely as ever to keep carrots in the fridge. When the recession hit, though, they became more likely to buy regular carrots, instead of baby carrots, to save money. But people used to eating baby carrots weren't taking the time to wash and cut the regular ones. And unlike baby carrots, which dry out pretty quickly once a bag is opened, regular carrots keep a long time. So people were buying regular carrots and then not eating them, and not buying more until the carrots they had were finally gone or spoiled.
Bolthouse had never marketed its baby carrots. It just sent truckloads to supermarkets, where they got piled up in the produce aisle. A new advertising campaign was needed.
The concept was "To have a great advertising idea, you have to get at the truth of the product. The truth about baby carrots is they possess many of the defining characteristics of our favourite junk food. They're neon orange, they're crunchy, they're dippable, they're kind of addictive - They're just cool and part of your life. If Doritos can sell cheeseburger-flavoured Doritos, we can sell baby carrots." A new jazzy packaging portfolio was created, aimed primarily at junk food addicts and it soon became a roaring success.
(The above information is taken from a more detailed piece
by Douglas McGray writing for the Fast Company - read the full article )
$25m campaign to Get Kids to Eat Carrots by branding them like junk food - According to USA Today, a group of producers will unveil a sophisticated media campaign designed to drive a wedge between the munching public and our snack foods, a wedge in the shape of a carrot. This campaign will include repackaging carrots for school vending machines in bags that resemble Doritos (both orange, little-finger size, crunchy, so consumers probably won't even notice the difference, right?) (Left, Halloween "Scarrots" 2010)
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A few words of warning, and the viable alternative -
Citrox!
Baby carrots are not as nutritious as full whole carrots,
because a lot of the goodness in carrots is contained in the skin and just below
it. This is removed in the baby carrot making process.
After harvesting, the carrots are mainly washed in
chlorinated water, just like our drinking water, and cleaned to remove dirt and
mud. Some finished baby carrots are washed, or dipped, by a further chlorine
solution to prevent white blushing once in the store. There is no evidence that
this is harmful, but it is worth knowing about!. However organic growers use a
citrus based non toxic solution called Citrox (The ProGarda™), the
natural alternative to synthetic biocides for the decontamination of fresh
produce, food and beverages. Citrox technology incorporates a truly holistic
approach designed to increase the effectiveness and profitability of food and
beverage production processes. A brief overview of this product here.
All Citrox products are made from natural extracts or
naturally derived compounds. Some of them are permitted for use in organic
production (e.g.: fruit & vegetable decontaminant) or certified organic
(e.g.: pre-harvest treatment products). All the Citrox derivatives are
completely non-toxic, non-carcinogenic, non-corrosive, and non-tainting in use.
They can actually be added to foodstuffs. They are formed by the bioflavonoid
extracts and a range of completely natural organic acids, this combination
having highly synergistic effects in all their many applications. The ProGarda™
decontaminant range has been specifically formulated for the decontamination of
fruits and vegetables. These products are viable alternatives to the use of
chlorine (or other compounds or systems) for decontaminating fresh fruits and
vegetables. More
about Citrox here.
According to Randy Worobo, an associate professor of food
microbiology at Cornell University, you need not worry. As reported in
Prevention magazine, he says carrots are not preserved in bleach but rinsed in a
chlorine wash that's recommended by the FDA to kill bacteria such as salmonella
and E. coli. Most pre-cut produce, including frozen vegetables and fruit salad,
is washed with this or similar sanitizers.
Baby Cut and Peeled Carrots are treated with chlorine. It is
used as an anti-microbial treatment to control potential contamination in the
finished product. Carrots that are treated with chlorine are subsequently soaked
and rinsed with potable water to remove the excess chlorine before being
packaged.
Sanitizers that can be used to wash or to assist in lye peeling of fruits and
vegetables are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in accordance
with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act as outlined in the Code of Federal
Regulations, Title 21, Ch. 1, Section 173.315.
Chlorine is routinely used as a sanitizer in wash, spray, and flume waters
used in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry. Anti-microbial activity depends
on the amount of free available chlorine (as hypochlorous acid) in water that
comes in contact with microbial cells. The effectiveness of chlorine in killing
pathogenic micro organisms has been extensively studied." For more information
on the use of Chlorine as a routine anti-microbial sanitizer, you can visit the
following government web site;
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol3no4/beuchat.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol3no4/beuchat.htm
This ‘Chlorine’ is most likely sodium hypochlorite also known as chlorine bleach. It is used as a disinfectant and antimicrobial in many industries. It is made by reacting a sodium hydroxide solution (also know as caustic soda or lye) with elemental chlorine gas. All of these chemicals are made from sodium chloride, also known as salt. Next time do some research look up cholera if you want a glimpse of what the world was like before the wide availability of chlorine disinfection!
Like other ready-to-eat fresh vegetables, baby-cut carrots are rinsed or sprayed with very diluted chlorine to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination, and then thoroughly washed and bagged. This process is approved by the FDA and accepted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, with strict rules for what concentration of chlorine can be used and how long the carrots can be exposed. Chlorine is similarly used as a disinfectant in public water supplies and sometimes in poultry processing. It is toxic at high concentrations, but there is no evidence that trace amounts left on food and in water are harmful to health.
Is this dangerous? Chlorination is a well-known and well-tested way to disinfect food products. Our tap water is chlorinated as well. When you disinfect something, that means that you kill the bacteria that are present. Chlorine kills bacteria. It can also kill us, or be very bad for us. The bleach you use to clean and disinfect your toilet, contains chlorine. Do not drink it. This will kill you because it is far more concentrated than we can safely ingest. The diluted chlorine in your tap water and in your baby-carrots, presents no proven danger whatsoever. It is precisely to make the carrots safe that the chlorine is used.
As a side-note, it is interesting to know that the term "chlorine" is something of a misnomer. Chlorine, in its natural state, is a highly reactive gas that forms compounds with other products. When chlorine is added to other products, it will react virtually immediately to form compounds such as hypochlorous acid (when chlorine is added to water) and sodium hypochlorite (when chlorine is added to a sodium hydroxide solution). These compounds in turn disinfect the water. When we talk about chlorine, and even about free chlorine, these compounds are usually what we are referring to.
Note: there are certain compounds of chlorine that do cause cancer. Does chlorine cause cancer? No. While medical science is not an exact science, and we must always be vigilant, there is at present no evidence whatsoever that chlorine causes cancer or could be a facilitator for cancer. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have not classified chlorine as to its human carcinogenicity.
The solution used to wash carrots is NOT the same as in swimming pools.
More on White Blush
It is simply the carrot drying out. Try it out for yourself. Take a fresh, normal carrot and cut it in half. Wait. The same white covering (which is officially called white blush) will appear on the cut. Baby carrots will show a lot more white blush for a very simple reason: their skin has been removed and therefore, the entire carrot dries out. Methods of inhibiting the formation of white blush discoloration on freshly processed carrots.
When many fruits (i.e., apples, pears, peaches, avocados, and bananas) and vegetables (i.e., beans, potatoes, mushrooms and many root crops) are bruised, or are cut, peeled, or processed in any other way that causes tissue injury, a black or brown discoloration appears at the site of the tissue injury within a few minutes due to enzymes of the melanosis reaction. This discoloration problem has been the subject of much study, because of its obvious economic importance to the food processing industry.
Unlike other fruit and vegetables as detailed above, carrots
do not develop black or brown discolorations after suffering tissue injuries due
to enzymes of the melanosis reaction. Consequently, the carrot is an ideal
vegetable to process shortly after harvest into a form that is ready for
consumption. Of the estimated 3 billion pounds of carrots that are marketed in
the United States each year, approximately 20% are peeled soon after harvest to
be sold as fresh miniature carrots, carrot sticks, carrot coins, carrot shreds,
and other forms of fresh processed carrots.
Whole, unprocessed carrots may be stored under refrigeration
for many weeks without significantly deteriorating. However, freshly processed
carrots that have been in refrigerated storage for just a few days begin to
develop a whitish, chalk-like appearance on their abraded surfaces. In the
carrot processing industry, this whitish, chalk-like appearance is known as
"white blush."
The rate at which white blush appears on processed carrots is
a function of the physiological condition of the whole carrots prior to
processing, the degree of abrasiveness that was present in the processing, the
chemical treatments that were applied to the carrots, if any, and the humidity
levels and the temperatures at which the carrots have been stored. For example,
variations in the physiology of the whole, unprocessed carrots caused by
different degrees of environmental stresses during the growing period, such as
heat stress and drought stress, will result in variations in the onset of white
blush formation under given storage conditions. Carrots that were grown in
poorly irrigated fields tend to form white blush discoloration more rapidly,
than do processed carrots that were grown in well irrigated fields.
White blush discolourisation is unsightly and unappetizing.
As a result, consumers invariably associate white blush with distastefully old
carrots, even though the taste and nutritional value of processed carrots are
not affected by the appearance of white blush. This fact leads to significant
commercial waste when processed carrots are pulled from the shelf due to the
appearance of white blush even though taste and nutrition are not being
effected.
To date, white blush has been controlled primarily by washing
freshly processed carrots with chilled water, usually in a hydrocooler, followed
by refrigeration and/or by packaging of the freshly processed carrots in
specialised containers, including some that maintain modified atmospheres within
the containers. Chlorine has also been added to the chilled water treatments for
sanitation purposes, and primarily to control microbial bacteria growth on the
processed carrots. However, depending upon the above variables, the onset of
white blush may only be delayed for a few days. Therefore baby carrots tend to
have a shorter shelf life.
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