RESER'S AGRONOMY PROGRAM

Agronomy: The application of various soil and plant sciences to soil management and crop production; scientific agriculture.

Reser’s Fine Foods is a major manufacturer of prepared cole slaw and has established an agronomy program to evaluate and optimize the major slaw component, cabbage. There are well over 1,000 varieties of cabbage cultivated in the United States and we have focused our program on the development of detailed, scientific specifications for the cabbage used in our cole slaws, coupled with an active and ongoing series of field trials conducted in all of the major cabbage growing areas in the US.

The cabbage challenge.
Our goal is to produce a colorful and crisp cole slaw with a mild stable flavor throughout the shelf life of the product. This is a challenge, since the raw cabbage used in cole slaw contains active enzymes and volatile flavor components that make oxidative discoloration (browning) and significant flavor changes, like a hot biting or fishy off flavor, likely to occur.

Fortunately, our cole slaw formulations contain an anti-oxidant system that ensures browning discoloration is never a problem. Off flavors are caused by sulphurous chemical constituents in the cabbage, most notably isothiocyanate, also called mustard oil, which gives horseradish and mustard their hot flavor and which we wish to minimize or eliminate in cole slaw. The level of this mustard oil in cabbage is genetically determined, so by selecting varieties of cabbage that are characteristically low in this compound, we can achieve the desired mild stable flavor.

Working with our growers.
We have worked with the seed companies that develop cabbage varieties and with growers in each region to produce test plots of trial varieties for our evaluations from hundreds of candidates. We select a few varieties that are mild tasting, crisp and fresh green in color, producing large, dense heads with a shallow core and good yield and disease resistance as approved varieties that will be grown in subsequent seasons. Interestingly, a variety with outstanding performance in one growing area may fail miserably in a different area. We must therefore develop a listing of approved cabbage varieties by growing region.

Continuous improvement.
Our agronomy program is an ongoing, season-after-season initiative where we regularly evaluate new varieties of cabbage as they are developed. We have substantially improved the quality of all of our cole slaw products as a result of this program, and our production volumes of cole slaw is increasing as a result of these improvements.

As we dealt closely with our cabbage growers, we were able to work with them on the establishment of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) for use on the farms where vegetables are produced for Reser’s. Just as our food plant workers are trained to follow safe food handling practices called Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), the farm workers are trained on the GAPs to properly handle our produce in the fields. This is valuable extension of our food safety program, and another benefit of our agronomy program.

If you have questions or desire further information on any aspect of this program or other food safety or quality matters, please contact Reser’s Technical Director, Steve Loehndorf, at stevel@resers.com.