QUALITY
Quality comes from hard work, not by accident. We have quality assurance practices, storage guidelines, and pack line procedures to ensure our fruit is picked and packed at the highest quality.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
• Proprietary Quality Assurance Program (QA-Ag) with critical control points, thresholds, and corrective actions.
• This, increases the uniformity of each box.
• By doing this we also collect a large database collection (500,000 records) of fruit firmness, sugar and defects for ongoing research and quality improvements.
THE PROCESS
1. The process begin by measuring pressure and brix at harvest.
2. As we pack the fruit we measure grade defects, serious and non-serious, while continuing to measure pressure and brix. This allows us to reduce shrinkage and take proper actions to enforce quality and grade standards.
3. When the fruit reaches the destination we continue to collect pressure, brix, and measure changes from the distribution warehouse to the store shelf.
PACKING
• Our Brandt Farms fields and packing/storage facilities are certified GLOBAL G.A.P. IFA 5.0 and Primus GFS.
• Fully Compliant with the Produce Traceability Initiative and feature print PLU stickers with Trace back numbers.
• These numbers identify field, date of harvest, and pack run. Trace back is no longer lost when the fruit is removed from the carton. This is true field to fork traceback.
STORAGE
• After packing, we use delayed cooling to ensure the highest juice content. This means fruit is cooled 12-24 hours after picking and packing.
• When cooling, we force air cool the fruit to 32°F to maintain freshness and shelf life.