Pack Shed Rules Employee Handbook

Abstract

Good harvest-to-sale handling techniques are important to us as farmers because we work hard to grow, care for, and harvest quality produce. We want to ensure our fruits and vegetables stay at their peak quality as long as possible, thereby satisfying our customers and sustaining our businesses. Your job is to get produce from the field to the customer at its highest quality and safely, while working efficiently and carefully and using good handling practices at each step: harvest, cleaning and cooling, sorting and grading, packing, storage, transport, and display. High-quality, clean produce with a long shelf-life will increase sales for the farm and create jobs for workers like you year after year. Doing your job well contributes to the overall success of the farm. This manual will help you understand the following post-harvest handling concepts: · A satisfied customer’s expectations · A plant’s respiration process · How to handle different respiration rates, ethylene producers, and cold sensitive crops · Food safety and the 4 W’s: Workers, Waste, Water, Wildlife · Sorting, grading and culling · Training Checklist & Employee Agreement Not everything in this handbook applies to every farm. Your on-the-job training will teach you handling procedures specific to your farm.