An efficient greens spinner for improving food safety and increasing profitability for small to mid-size farms

Johnny's Selected SeedsFY21 USDA SBIR Phase IField 7. Project SummaryProject Title: An efficient greens spinner for improving food safety and increasingprofitability for small to mid-size farmsPD Bradford Waugh Johnny's Selected SeedsProblem or Opportunity. America's small to mid-size farms struggle to survive and maintainprofitability. Many barriers exist preventing these farms from scaling operations such as a lack ofavailable farm equipment customized for small-scale operations and labor-intensive practicescommon to small farms. Leafy greens producers in particular have high operating costs associatedwith the labor inputs needed for postharvest handling and processing. Johnny's Selected Seedsproposes to develop a cost-effective labor-saving and hygienic electric greens spinner for smallfarms that will vastly improve handling capacity for leafy greens. Increased cost-efficiency fromlabor-saving technologies such as this can reduce the per unit cost of products enabling farms toscale operations to satisfy demand of more profitable distribution channels such as intermediatechannels in local markets that require consistent large quantities of produce. The proposed greensspinner will improve the profitability of small leafy greens farmers by enabling them to increaseoutput and will follow a hygienic and sanitary design that will prevent water harborage and cross- contamination improving the food safety of leafy greens.Project Objectives. 1. Develop a prototype electric greens spinner for small farms that increaseshandling and processing capacity reduces labor costs and prevents water harborage and cross- contamination. 2. Conduct market feasibility testing to inform pricing strategy and salesprojections critical to the development of a successful commercialization plan.Description of Phase I Effort. Design and fabricate a small-scale electric greens spinner incollaboration with manufacturing consultants and sanitation certification specialists; conduct in- house endurance testing of the prototype at the machine shop and trial the product on Johnny'sresearch farm. Complete a logistics assessment to determine the operational strategy formanufacturing the commercialized product. In partnership with agricultural business andeconomics researchers conduct a preliminary value chain analysis to identify the size and locationof the market needed to scale and a customer survey to determine baseline data as to the types ofcustomers most interested in an electric greens spinner and to project the market size.Anticipated Results and Potential Commercial Applications. This project will result in afabricated and tested prototype of a hygienic electric greens spinner for small to mid-size farms.Johnny's will further optimize the tool in Phase II based on equipment testing and live farm trialsand scale production of the spinner for national distribution potentially impacting over 10000leafy greens farms in the U.S. that meet the criteria of a small to mid-size farm. Given Johnny'sglobal presence in the farm tools and supply market this product can also be scaled for globaldistribution especially for top lettuce producing countries such as China Spain and India.1