What is the best way to ship fresh broccoli to local grocers and restaurants? You need a packing solution that allows you to keep your broccoli cold and hydtrated, uncrushed and efficiently stored. While traditional broccoli shipping has involved wax corrugated cardboard boxes, a better way has since entered the market.
Just a few years ago, corn growers were also using wax corrugated boxes, but now, more often, you will see corn shipped in corrugated plastic. Why? Durability, climate control, and sustainability all play an important part in a change that is sweeping the produce industry.
Shipping fresh broccoli requires some very specific conditions to ensure your crop arrives in the best possible quality on retailer loading docks. How you pack is essential, and the boxes you select make a big difference. Corrugated plastic boxes have outpaced waxed cardboard for five important reasons.
Broccoli is typically packed in ice to keep the tops cool and fresh. Even as it melts, ice provides high humidity ratio inside the box, which prevents your broccoli from drying and shrinking.
Corrugated plastic boxes are waterproof when assembled using ultrasonic welding. This allows them to retain the moisture from fresh and melting ice without dripping, soaking the box, or ruining your fresh crop.
Wax corrugated cardboard boxes are only slightly moisture resistant. As the ice melts, it tends to ruin the box and palletes of fresh produce begin to crush. The box dies before the product, as produce is bruised when wet boxes collapse.
However, corrugated plastic cannot become soggy and maintains a cold temperature for longer. Finally, the product dies before the box.
Your cold chain is the logistics chain required for chilled cargo, like your produce shipments. Plastic boxes provide for a longer cold chain, where your produce may need to travel further and on longer journeys. When you ship broccoli across states, it keeps it fresher, longer when packed in corrugated plastic boxes as opposed to waxed cardboard. This allows you to diversify your retail partners and shipping solutions without worrying about your broccoli's freshness upon delivery.
You can keep the broccoli in the cooler longer when packed with ice in plastic boxes. Corrugated plastic boxes are very durable and they do not decay while your produce is in storage. This means the box will not dictate how long your retailers have to shelve and sell your broccoli crop.
Lastly, corrugated plastic produce boxes work better with hydrocooling or ice machine packing on a large scale. This is, again, because they are waterproof. Putting broccoli away wet after hydrocooling or packing it in ice, which slowly melts, are both perfectly safe without putting the box or your broccoli at risk.
Just as corn packaging has made the transition from wax corrugated boxes to plastic produce boxes, so too can broccoli. Broccoli has very refined packaging requirements where your produce must be kept at just the right temperature and humidity, while protecting it from exposure to other ripening produce that may be in the same cooler or refrigerated truck.
Corrugated plastic boxes provide everything you need for safe and long-lasting cold chain transport for your broccoli crop. From humidity and moisture retainment to long-term durability without the risk of palette collapse, you can deliver the highest quality broccoli with minimal effort when you switch from wax to plastic for your broccoli produce packaging.
Contact us today to explore custom designed and branded plastic produce boxes for your produce packing needs.
If you are already using plastic boxes to ship your boxes, learn how you can preserve it even further with MAP packaging.