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VGA IDO East Slobodan Vujovic, gives us an overview of his recent study tour to the USA and Italy. The tour was organised to see existing, new and emerging lettuce harvesting technologies in action and assess how they may be integrated with systems in Australia. The tour focused on Iceberg, Cos and salad mix harvesters, production innovations and trends in varieties, packaging and marketing of lettuce.
In California’s Salinas valley we visited two of the biggest manufactures of specialized harvesting aids for the lettuce industry Ramsay Highlander and Valley Fabrication. One of the highlights was seeing Ramsay’s newest Mechanical Harvester (see photo), which uses a high pressure water jet to cut Cos lettuce. This harvester replaced 30 people and also helped increase product shelf life. We also visited Taylor Farms one of the leading processing company in salads and fresh vegetables.
In Italy we visited two of the leading manufactures of lettuce and salad mix harvesting equipment, Hortech and Ortomac. Our last stop on the tour was Turatti in Cavarzere one of the worlds leading manufactures for the fresh cut industry. Lindenow grower Andrew Bulmer was on the tour and recommends all veggie growers get involved in study tours as “one of the best ways to learn and bring home new knowledge”. Growers can hear about the Lettuce Study Tour at the East Gippsland Growers Dinner on 28 September 2011. For more information contact your Industry Development Officers :
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