US fresh-cut fruit innovator, Ready Pac, has announced the introduction of new ready-to-serve products, including pears, kumquats and oranges, that began shipping this autumn.
'To my knowledge, Ready Pac is the only company that processes fresh-cut pears (not packed in juice or syrup),' said Tristan Simpson, the company's director of marketing and corporate communications. 'We successfully introduced fresh pears into one fruit blend in the autumn of 2011 and based on very positive results, we have introduced three new items featuring them.
'Ready Pac’s motto is 'Real. Fresh. Innovation', so we are continually exploring new ways to push the boundaries of fresh-cut processing,' Simpson continued. 'For instance, we were the first fresh-cut processor to incorporate fresh-cut fruit into bagged salad kits.'
Ready Pac’s new fresh-cut pear items include a Pear Orange Fruit Mix, a colourful autumn medley of cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple, apples and red grapes, and a Pear & Apple Harvest Platter as well as a Pineapple Grape Orange fresh-cut fruit mix.
The company hopes these latest products will appeal to consumers for seasonal festivities. The large round platter presents green pear slices on one side and red apple slices on the other, along with grapes and seasonally-available kumquats, a caramel dip, cheddar and pepper jack cheeses, and wholewheat cracker packs.
In the past, pears have presented a challenge for the fresh-cut sector, due to their asymmetrical shape, as have oranges, which can be tricky to peel without yield loss.
Ready Pac washes kumquats using proprietary fresh-cut processing techniques, and places them whole into the platters. The challenge with kumquats is sourcing adequate supply, so Ready Pac has designed the new platters to be able to modify them when kumquats are not as easily available.
