Hippo Harvest, a grower, packer and shipper of packaged salads, announced the launch of its newly USDA certified organic packaged salad product line. The product line offers a full selection of leafy green products sourced exclusively from the company’s controlled environment agriculture (CEA) greenhouse, as well as a hybrid blend of greenhouse and field-grown leafy greens. The company’s novel approach offers key benefits to grocery retailers including a wider assortment of products to meet consumer preferences as compared to other greenhouse growers; and higher quality, longer shelf life and more consistent supply as compared to traditional field growers alone.
Founded in 2019, Hippo Harvest operates a first-of-its-kind greenhouse facility in Pescadero, CA that offers a number of advantages to traditional field-grown, organic-certified produce:
- Hippo’s greens taste better with less bitterness and a juicier mouthfeel as compared to field grown greens.
- Hippo’s system greatly decreases food safety risks including water borne pathogens, mold, and mildew, growing in a patented closed-loop, non-recirculating, direct-to-root fertilizer and watering system. Hippo’s modular growing system also provides unmatched traceability to the case level and allows trays to be sanitized between each harvest cycle to prevent the build-up of microbes.
- Hippo achieves consistent quality and yield, since it is protected from weather and the system delivers custom nutrition based on the plants’ variety, age, and the greenhouse microclimate.
- With custom nutrition, low microbial pressure, and direct-to-refrigeration harvesting, Hippo extends shelf life up to 30% compared to outdoor grown greens.
- By partnering with field growers, Hippo’s greenhouses can diversify supply for surety, scalability, and cost optimization, offering blended product lines alongside greenhouse-grown SKUs.
Also Read: CIBO Technologies and Scoular Team Up for Regenerative Farming
“Traditional field-grown and greenhouse-grown produce have each had limitations,” said Hippo Harvest CEO Eitan Marder-Eppstein. “Our USDA organic-certified packaged salads provide the best of both worlds as it relates to cost, quality, surety of supply and scalability for both consumers and grocers.”
To deliver these advantages, Hippo Harvest had developed advanced machine learning and purpose-built robotic tooling to monitor, tend to and harvest plants, delivering precise levels of water and nutrition. The modular grow-trays allow highly customized water, nutrition, and monitoring and operational optimizations for every 10 square feet of plant growth to enhance efficiency. The company’s approach uses 92% less water, 55% less fertilizer, and 94% less land compared to traditional farming while offering superior quality and prices that are competitive with field grown suppliers.
The new organic-certified product line includes Baby Spinach, Spring Mix, Arugula, 50:50 Mix, Power Greens, Baby Kale, Baby Romaine, Crispy Leaf, and Tender Greens. Hippo Harvest‘s products are currently available at various San Francisco Bay Area retailers, including Amazon Fresh and Gus’s Market, with plans to expand outside of the Bay Area within the coming year. The company signed The Climate Pledge, a commitment co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism for businesses to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
SOURCE: PRNewswire