Grower packers
Field vegetables and brassica
Growing, washing, grading and packing on one site, and carrying the whole loss when condition fails.
The problem
What is this stage of the chain actually costing you?
More than the shelf-life conversation suggests, and in a place most suppliers to this market do not pitch against.
Product rejected at grading carries every cost you have already incurred and returns none of it. For most packhouses that is a larger and better understood loss than end-of-life spoilage, it is counted daily, and it is the subject of the weekly conversation with the customer. It is also the loss line that condition through handling and packing has the most influence over.
WRAP's study of UK primary production put food surplus and waste at 3.6 million tonnes a year, 7.2 per cent of production and around 1.2 billion pounds. Horticultural crops are 54 per cent of it by product type. The crop-level rates are the ones that land in a growers' meeting: 17.3 per cent of onion production, 15.7 per cent of carrots, 13 per cent of cabbage.
Then there is a duty that has moved. Chlorate carries enforced maximum residue levels under Commission Regulation (EU) 2020/749, with a default of 0.01 mg per kg, and Food Standards Scotland states that responsibility for demonstrating those residues are legally sourced rests entirely with the food business operator. The hygiene step many sites depend on is one of the routes by which the residue arrives, which makes it your exposure and not your supplier's.
Waste itself is now separately regulated. Businesses with ten or more full time staff have had to separate food waste since 31 March 2025 under Simpler Recycling, and since 3 February 2026 the Environment Agency has charged 118 pounds an hour for regulatory work arising from non-compliance. What was a paper obligation has a price on it.
How it works
What can actually be done at this stage?
Reduce the load of spoilage organisms on the surface and the cut surface immediately after harvest, so that new infection starts later than it otherwise would.
It is preventative. It slows the onset of infection on sound product, and it does not rescue produce already infected or reverse damage already done. That distinction matters commercially, because a site expecting recovery of marginal product will judge the result against something it was never going to do.
It is additive to the cold chain, not a replacement for it. Temperature remains the dominant variable in how long anything holds, and the honest position is that this works best on sites where handling and temperature discipline are already good.
Where it is applied matters more than what is applied. Decay generally starts at the cut surface, which is precisely what harvesting, grading and packing create, and precisely where the opportunity sits.
The same programme can take in the water produce is handled in, the crates and surfaces it touches, the air in the store and the media it was grown in. Most suppliers into this sector own one of those. Putting them under one accountable programme is the practical difference, because decay in a packhouse is rarely traceable to a single cause.
What you get
The outcomes we work towards
Obligation
Residue exposure you can evidence
The duty to demonstrate residues are legally sourced is yours. We treat that as something to measure against a like-for-like comparator rather than something to assert, so what you show an auditor is data rather than a supplier's word.
Cost
Fewer rejections at grading
The loss line you already count. Condition held through handling and packing is where the commercial case sits, and where the evidence we hold speaks most directly.
Obligation
Movement on a commitment you have made
Nearly 200 organisations have signed the UK Food and Drink Pact, targeting a 50 per cent cut in per capita food waste by 2030 against a 2007 baseline, with progress off track. Post-harvest loss is one of the few remaining levers once cold chain and forecasting are optimised.
Cost
One accountable programme
Water, surfaces, crates, store air and the produce itself, addressed together. Fewer contracts, and nobody to point at when a problem appears mid season.
Risk
Evidence that survives a technical audit
Retailer technologists read the method before the conclusion. We hand over the method, the conditions and the limits, so the second question does not undo the first answer.
Risk
A trial your customer would accept
Replicated, blind scored against a declared endpoint, with a comparator reflecting your current practice and residues measured. Designed so a negative result is as useful to you as a positive one.
Evidence
What the evidence shows, and what it does not
In an independent laboratory evaluation, a single low-dose post-harvest treatment left produce in visibly better condition than untreated controls at both ambient and refrigerated storage, with the difference clearest by day 20. That was broccoli, it was a visual assessment, and it produced no shelf-life figure, because neither refrigerated arm was run to failure. The figures below describe the scale of loss in UK primary production, from WRAP's study published in 2019 on 2017 data. They are not our results.
3.6m tonnesUK food surplus and waste in primary production each year, 7.2 per cent of production (WRAP, 2019 study on 2017 data)
54%of that waste is horticultural crops, by product type (WRAP, same study)
17.3%of UK onion production wasted after harvest. Carrots 15.7 per cent, cabbage 13 per cent (WRAP, same study)
GBP 118/hrEnvironment Agency charge for regulatory work on Simpler Recycling non-compliance, since 3 February 2026
Who we work with
Where this applies in the sector
The honest part
What we are not claiming
This sector has been sold shelf-life numbers for twenty years and has learned to discount them. So here is our position, stated before you ask for it.
We do not have a shelf-life figure, in days or percentages, for any crop. The independent evaluation we hold was a visual assessment on broccoli with three samples per arm, unblinded, with no microbiological counts and no comparator against the wash a packhouse already runs, and it ended while both refrigerated arms were still viable. It shows a direction, and we will not inflate it into a number. Nor will we claim a residue advantage before we have measured one, even though it is the claim we would most like to make. If a supplier offers you a multiple of shelf life for your crop, ask for the method, the number of replicates and where the endpoint was set, before you look at the figure.
The proposal is a trial on your crop, at your site, built so the result is one your customer would accept: replicated, blind scored to a declared endpoint, compared against your current practice and with residues measured. If it does not work on your product, you will find out quickly and inexpensively.
Questions answered
How many days of shelf life will this add to my crop?
We do not know for your crop and we will not estimate. The independent evaluation we hold produced no day-count, because it finished while both refrigerated arms were still in usable condition, so no endpoint was ever reached. A day-count offered without a stated method, replication and endpoint is not worth much.
Is this a replacement for refrigeration?
No. Temperature is the dominant factor in how long perishable product holds, and nothing here changes that. This is additive to a properly run cold chain and gives most where handling and temperature are already well controlled.
Will it bring back product that has already deteriorated?
No. It is preventative rather than curative. It reduces spoilage organism load on sound product so new infection starts later. Product already infected will keep deteriorating.
Who carries the residue risk on my crop?
You do. Food Standards Scotland is explicit that responsibility for demonstrating residues are legally sourced rests entirely with the food business operator, and chlorate maximum residue levels are enforced under Commission Regulation (EU) 2020/749 with a default of 0.01 mg per kg. That is why we treat residues as something to measure in a trial rather than to claim in a brochure.
We grow organic. Can we use this?
That has to be confirmed with your certifier before treated crop enters any commercial channel. The rules covering what may be applied directly to produce are stricter than those covering buildings and equipment, and the position needs to be settled first. We will raise it at the outset rather than leave you to discover it.
How is this different from what my packhouse already runs?
That is the right question and it is one we cannot answer in the abstract. Most sites run a chlorine based wash, and the fair comparison is against that rather than against doing nothing. A trial without a comparator reflecting your current practice tells you very little, which is why we build one in.
Do you work with cut flowers as well as food crops?
Yes. Hydration water, buckets and tools in ornamentals face the same commercial problem, with vase life and Botrytis pressure in place of grade-out. It is a distinct piece of work from food crops and we treat it as one.
Start with your grade-out, not with our claims
Tell us what rejections at grading cost you and where your residue exposure sits today. If there is nothing here worth trialling on your crop, we will say so.
Speak to the Team
Tell us your challenge
Tell us the cost, the risk or the obligation you are facing. A senior member of our team will respond, in confidence, with how we would help.
Every enquiry is handled in strict confidence.