Germany
February 2013
Source: Bayer CropScience Magazine
Ready-to-serve salads and fruit snacks are becoming
very popular. Convenience foods are the trend. They require seamless cooperation in the value chain –
from seed to plant and from distribution to the chiller section in the supermarket.
It was love at first bite. Mexican food scientist Veronica Castaneda Muñoz (pictured) enthuses about her first encounter with a very special tomato: “I took one bite – and that was it! There was no squirting of juice and the taste was excellent.”
The tomato is called Intense™ and was developed by Nunhems, the vegetable seed business of Bayer CropScience. The flesh of the Intense tomato is firm, has a dense structure, and retains its juice. “That makes it ideal for sandwiches which would otherwise be soaked through after just a few hours,” says Castaneda Muñoz, who manages 83 hectares of tomato plantations on her father’s vegetable farm in Camalu, Mexico. “It will be a great success with producers of ready-to-eat salads,” she adds.
All over the world, the convenience food market is growing fast: bananas in snack machines, peeled oranges in clear view boxes, juicy melon cubes in a cup, or Chef Salad in a plastic dish. “Vitamins-to-go” are in fashion and have replaced carbohydrate-rich fast foods.
The original target group for ready-to-use products such as pre-washed bagged salad and ready-to-snack carrot sticks, or office companions such as fruit salads and sandwiches, were urban singles. But these fast and healthy foods have conquered all ages and population groups. Tomatoes in particular are in high demand: about 145 million tons of them are harvested annually around the globe. China is the number one producer with 25 percent of the global harvest; runners-up are the United States and India.
Seeds: more valuable than gold
In the convenience sector, there are innovation drivers all along the value chain, from seed producers to processers, from machine manufacturers to packaging designers. But when it comes to meeting this growing demand for convenience food, it is up to the fruit and vegetable breeders to deliver: “At Nunhems, innovation starts with the seeds,” says Daniel Kretzschmar, Nunhems Produce Chain Manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “To fine-tune our efforts, we cooperate effectively with all the representatives in the production chain.”
In addition, breeders are always very close to the customers, listening to their needs and desires: Consumers want sweet, one-bite cocktail tomatoes, or heart-shaped tomatoes as a party gag. New varieties are the result of crossing and selecting – a process that will often take more than ten years.
Developing the Intense™ tomato, the Nunhems experts wanted to simplify food processing in hotels, restaurants and catering companies: “We used classical breeding methods – but we were able to speed them up,” explains Coert Engels, tomato breeder at Nunhems. The research and development effort was hard but fruitful: today, the Intense™ tomato is marketed successfully all over Europe including Turkey, and it has conquered the shelves of the big supermarket chains in Australia. There is no doubt: Seeds are more valuable than gold, not only because they represent high returns on investment.
Big food companies have their own particular requirements for convenience produce. “Their specifications are usually quite different from what the consumers want in fresh fruit,” says Hans Renia, Produce Chain Specialist for Nunhems. Processors preparing fruit salads with melon and watermelon want their fruit bigger - much bigger than most consumers require - so that there is less waste.
Setting industrial trends
Special product ideas go a long way towards successfully introducing new convenience products. But they are not enough. It also takes precise knowledge of the needs of all market participants. Therefore, the experts of Bayer CropScience are in regular contact with growers, consultants, processors, food distributors, importers, exporters, retailers and catering specialists, and acquire in-depth knowledge of the needs of consumers and the industry. “This is how we gain insights into the many facets of production, processing, and the emergence of new consumer trends. Based on this information, we develop new varieties that become trendsetters in the industry,” says Kretzschmar.
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