CATEGORY

Packaged Organic Salad

2007 CHEFSBEST® AWARD FOR BEST TASTE WINNER

Earthbound Farms

What Makes a Great Packaged Organic Salad?

Featuring a variety of mixed greens, fresh-cut organic salad mixes remove the labor, time and guesswork from salad preparation. Add chopped carrots, olives, tomatoes, onion, salad dressing and all your favorite toppings, and you’ll have a crowd-pleasing salad for any occasion.

Our chefs define high-quality, fresh-cut organic spring mix salads as having a bright, fresh and vibrant color. Spring mixes should have a variety of lettuce leaves, not just one type, and they should appear fresh and have a minimal number of wilted leaves. Also, there should be no inappropriate off notes including gas or chemical notes.

A salad mix is in taste balance when pronounced bitterness—like the bitterness in an endive—is the leading basic taste, followed by a low, natural sweetness. Depending on the varieties of lettuce in the mix, there may be some very low sourness as well.

In the flavor profile for fresh-cut organic salad mixes, the moderate lettuce flavor should have a complex lettuce character with crisp, fresh, grassy and vegetal notes. The character should not be simple, flat or old, and as with the aroma, there should be no off notes detracting from the overall flavor.

When used with salad dressing, the salad’s flavor should not be overpowered by the dressing, nor should it make the leaves wilt. On its own, the lettuce texture should be tender like baby bibb lettuce, not tough like outer Romaine leaves.

Product Category Definition

The product judged was defined as packaged, spring mix, fresh-cut organic salad for the consumer market, not including fresh-cut bulk, salad mixes, salad kits, packaged fresh-cut fruit, fruit blends, vegetables or vegetable blends.

Other Leading Brands:

Fresh Express