Midi Romaine / Sweet Gem
Dependant where you buy your lettuce there are a range of names, that fit this catch all segment. They could be midi romaine, sweet gem or more crunchie types such as Cosberg or Dolce Romana.
As with all of our other lettuce varieties, we will closely monitor the performance of our varieties as we progress our future farming agenda and transition to regenerative practices, to ensure we are selecting varieties that perform in our new farming paradigm.
Segment Variation
This segment is made up of a range of varieties from various seed companies that has more of a tendance to change and rotate based in retailer preference on a season-by-season basis given the less established nature of the subcategory vs Little Gem, Romaine or Iceberg.
Alongside our little gem program, the midi types have emerged over the past 8 years as the newest entrants into the pointy lettuce category.”
Crunchy
Iceberg and Romaine (Cos) as the most popular lettuce types, enjoying high consumption levels globally. This inspired breeding team to blend the best traits of both into a single lettuce, introducing a brand new product: Crunchy Lettuce.
These Mini Crunchy Lettuce varieties have some unique characteristics such as a distinctive spoon shape, fresh crunchy leaves and an excellent flavour, which is ideal for all types of fillings.
To date we have worked with Rijk Zwaan on these lettuce types including Red Robin, which we have tested in the commercial environment and is currently back in concept testing.
Midi Romaine
The Mini Romaine or Sweet Gem category have emerged over the past 8 years as a lettuce sizing bracket between little gem, which typically offers a more hearted product and a full size romaine.
The broader portfolio of larger gem varieties that we see in Europe can often fill the midi sub category.
PlantTape
Across all of our midi varieties we are seeking to grow the crops within the little gem system to maximise yield and efficiency, particularly within the PlantTape transplanting system.
The size and nature of the crop will be dictated by individual customer specifications as we seek to customise the offer to sit as a more premium offer v’s core little gem.