Washing Salad in the Bubbler at Roebuck Farm

Today we are washing salads in our stainless steel bubbler.

Our RECENT POST covered the design and specs. The goal is for the salad to move by itself and to create a dead zone in the furthest corner for seed hulls and salad fines that float.

Any soil on the salad sinks so we wait till the bubbler is off before taking salad out to keep the salad extra clean.

We use a pool screen to remove the salad followed by removing any debris left in the water before the next batch of salad. This is done when the bubbler is on.

We wash one container of salad per cycle, beginning with the cleanest salad and finishing with the dirtiest salad. Outdoor lettuce in our climate can have soil on the leaves after heavy rains.

We wash each salad type separately as they all have different drying times, and this allows us to put together restaurant orders first before combining the salads into the final leaves and shoots mix. Restaurants also buy the mix, but the largest sales are in retail.

One person can wash, spin and dry salad on harvest day.

We also clean head lettuce in the bubbler, simply by submerging the heads and shaking them out. We don’t turn the bubbler on.
The bubbler is key infrastructure in our Wash & Pack. We started with a plastic DIY before making the stainless steel model which has been a game changer