Verdeagua, a lettuce producer based in Montevideo, Uruguay, has recently put into operation a processing line for making ready-to-eat salads. The sensitive products are supplied to supermarkets and gourmet restaurants, ensuring a high standard of quality. The processing line machines were delivered by KRONEN after the Verdeagua team had been briefed during a factory tour of a KRONEN customer in Germany to implement professional lettuce processing.
Due to the expansion of the product portfolio since its foundation in 2000, the company now wanted to adapt its processing to larger volumes. Originally growing small quantities of lettuce in hydroponic cultures, today Verdeagua's range includes the particularly delicate Salanova® salad, baby leaf, spinach, rocket, watercress and basil.
All products are delivered ready-to-eat to customers with high quality requirements from retail and catering. By ensuring this consistently high quality, Verdeagua is today the leading supplier of ready-to-eat hydroponic vegetables in Uruguay.
Salanova®
Food safety, sustainability and quality of sensitive products are the focus. The company specializes in the cultivation and processing of particularly sensitive products, because in addition to the fine leaves of spinach or basil, the particularly delicate Salanova® salads are also processed. This variety of lettuce is characterized by its small leaves with a thin, short midrib that does not need to be removed before consumption - resulting in less waste and more edible product. Sustainability is also an important aspect of Verdeagua's workmanship, as its corporate values include environmental protection and added value for its employees.
Professional salad processing solution
After the owners of Verdeagua had informed themselves about the solutions for lettuce processing at the KRONEN stand at Fruit Logistica 2018, Heiko Schönbroich (Sales Manager Germany South at KRONEN) and Juan Lindmayer (Export Division Manager for Latin America & Caribbean at KRONEN) organized a visit to the KRONEN customer légumes Rapp in Germany for the Verdeagua team. On the spot, the 
Verdeagua team got an idea of how to implement a professional lettuce processing solution. Verdeagua then decided to install a KRONEN salad processing line at their facility, which was accompanied on site by Juan Lindmayer.
The new washing and dewatering line at Verdeagua consists of a cleaning table, a climbing belt, a washing machine and a basket carousel and a salad spinner of the latest generation. The washing machine, a GEWA 3800V ECO, allows a thorough and gentle washing of different products, as the adjustable water roller as well as the exchangeable vibrating sieves with different hole sizes make it possible to adapt to different product characteristics. With the GEWA 3800V ECO, e.g. up to 350 kg baby leaf or up to 200kg basil can be processed. Following washing and the first drainage through the washing machine's vibrating sieve, the KS-100 PLUS lettuce and vegetable slicer gently and carefully dehydrates the products by automatically changing the spinning direction during a spin cycle. Again, the spin cycles can be adapted to different products, whereby the individual settings for each product can be stored in the programmable memory locations. The processing capacity of the salad spinner is e.g. up to 190 kg baby leaf or 130 kg rocket per hour. The processing line at Verdeagua processes 100 kg of product per hour.
"We are delighted to be using these machines for the first time in Uruguay. This will enable us to expand the market and serve more customers in the future," said Sebastián Figuerón, technical manager at Verdeagua, at the launching of the processing line.
For more information:
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Tel: +49 (0)7854 9646-0
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info@kronen.eu
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