OXNARD, CA - Not long after announcing that it was debuting its new Fair Earth Farms brand’s exclusive lineup of bagged salads with home-compostable packaging, Boskovich Fresh Food Group is making strides again, this time announcing that it has joined forces with Chef Andrew Hunter to unveil a new line of bagged Salad Kits under the Fair Earth Farms banner. The pair spotlighted the new offerings at this year’s Produce Marketing Association’s (PMA) Fresh Summit along with the company’s continued commitment to sustainable packaging.
I sat down with John Wirawan, Vice President of Business Development for Fresh Prep—a division of Boskovich Farms—to get all of the details on the exciting new pairings.
“At this year’s PMA Fresh Summit, we spotlighted our new retail bagged salads in compostable packaging along with our salad kits with very dynamic flavors perfected by Chef Andrew Hunter,” explains John. “Our team is all about launch and following up with more and more creative concepts. Today, we have over 25 different flavor profiles in our developmental pipeline.”
Fair Earth Farms’ current lineup of bagged salads kits includes five taste-bud tingling flavors, including Coconut Cashew, Mexican Caesar, Two Way Spinach, Bacon Buttermilk, Sierra Sunrise, and Chipotle Coleslaw.
Chef Andrew is considered among one of the leading research and development (R&D) chefs in the nation and is the current Head of Culinary R&D for Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Executive Chef for Niman Ranch, and Global Development Chef for Kikkoman. To say that he is talented would be an understatement. With clientele around the globe, Chef Andrew and his unique abilities all but guarantee that Fair Earth Farms’ new lineup will be a smash.
“Andrew Hunter is a qualified expert. He is our go-to contact for all things culinary and our source for trends and commercialization of recipes,” comments John. “He was spotlighted at our virtual booth at PMA this year and demoed his insights on future salad kit concepts. The demo is still able to be viewed on our Fair Earth Farms YouTube channel and Instagram.”
In addition to the demo from Chef Andrew, the company also used its time at PMA Fresh Summit to drive home Boskovich’s mission of evolving all of its brands to include environmentally-friendly, home-compostable packaging that does not end up in the landfill.
“Then there is the new dynamic earth-friendly packaging,” explains John. “Removing single-use plastic in the value-added salad set is ground-breaking. Our packaging takes a disruptive direction, and yet is definitely on-trend. The amount of single-use plastic has increased due in large part to the U.S. consumers’ obligation of being home for the majority of their family’s meals. Blue recycling bins are overflowing—which makes everyone wonder ‘where does all of that plastic end up?’ More than 65 percent is finding its way into landfills, not into recycling programs as we were told.”
In recent national surveys, retail salad customers stated that it’s worthwhile to pay slightly extra for 70-day home-compostable packaging over traditional plastic packages.
Boskovich Fresh Food Group is tackling expansion with a celebrated culinary partner and a commitment to farming and building fresh, Earth-friendly produce one home-compostable package at a time.
