Lettuce to Go : Tear-open-the-bag-and-eat vegetables are becoming the latest trend in the supermarket.

It’s been a hectic, tiresome day at work--and there’s still a dinner to prepare tonight. But first comes a quick stop at the grocery store on the way home to fetch the makings for a tossed salad to complement the main entree.

Options: Bag a head of lettuce along with spinach, radishes, carrots and red cabbage--and look forward to laboriously washing, shredding, peeling and chopping it all. Or opt for the ready-made pack of salad mix with much the same ingredients. Open it and pour it in a bowl. The salad is done, and you are ready to start dinner’s first course within a fraction of the time that it would have taken to wash the lettuce alone.

These pre-washed, ready-made, tear-open-the-bag-and-eat products are becoming a trend with consumers, according to local growers and wholesalers. The answer to “why are they so popular?” is obvious.

“Convenience,” said David Shudo, a sales manager with Cal-Cel Marketing in Oxnard. “People are busy and don’t want to take the time that’s needed to prepare some of these vegetables.” Cal-Cel, a family-operated business, has farmed celery locally since the 1950s. In the last couple years, Shudo said, business is more brisk than ever for their pre-washed, pre-trimmed packaged celery hearts.

The product line has extended well beyond salad blends and ready-to-eat celery. Common now are the plastic packaged--and microwave ready--broccoli florets, small red potatoes, baby asparagus, haricot vert string beans, zucchini slices, peeled mini carrots, sugar peas, cauliflower pieces, mixtures and combinations of the latter, plus stir fry versions.

“It’s an idea that started in the food service arena and has moved into retail in the last few years,” said Chris Mayhew, a marketing manager with Dole Fresh Vegetables Co. A fair amount of consumer research has gone into determining the right mix of products that consumers would purchase, Mayhew said.

The various salad blends available include such lettuces as romaine, radicchio, butter, iceberg, as well as shredded carrots and red cabbage. Still other popular brand names such as “Fresh Express” and “ReadyPac” feature makings for a Caesar salad and other gourmet blends accented with escarole and endive.

Prices for the salad blends vary and the bag sizes range from 8 ounces to a whopping three-pound bag. You can expect to pay about $1.69 (10 oz.) for the less expensive version containing iceberg lettuce, carrot and red cabbage shreds. The gourmet mixes can run up to $2.99 (10 oz.). “You can’t compare it to just buying a head of lettuce,” Mayhew said. “You’re getting at least three ingredients and there’s no labor.”

“The great thing about this is there’s no waste,” said Jack Caldwell, owner of Caldwell and Son, a packinghouse in Los Angeles. Caldwell markets a wide range of convenience-packaged vegetables, cole slaw and chop suey mixes under the “Ready Pack” label. You’ll find his and the other products at such chains as Ralph’s, Vons and Hughes. “You can use a small portion and put the rest back into the fridge,” Caldwell said. “Many of the salad packages are now utilizing zip-lock bags for even more convenience.”

While fresh vegetable packers expect convenience sales to continue on a healthy upward trend, they also know that just because a product is washed and bagged doesn’t mean that it will be successful.

“A lot of (packers) have tried this and that, but some of it doesn’t make much sense,” said John Pavich, a sales manager with Boskovich Farms in Oxnard. He said some packers have tried marketing pre-washed cilantro and kale. “There’s not much else you have to do with that stuff,” he said. “Whereas, spinach takes a lot of time to clean and prepare, like cutting off the stems and cleaning out the (undesirable leaves).”

Boskovich entered the convenience market with packaged spinach leaves about five years ago. It took a while to catch on, but now business is brisk, Pavich said.

Most packers who have jumped on the convenience bandwagon have spent a considerable amount of money on state-of-the-art packing facilities.

“We built a whole new plant just for this market,” Pavich said. “It’s a pretty elaborate system.” Boxes of freshly harvested produce enter the machinery, which--acting as a vacuum--pulls out warm air and then shoots refrigerated air back in. The packaging system also includes multi-washing stages.

Even the bags used for the salads are high-tech. “The bags are developed specifically to meet the respiration needs of the product,” Mayhew said. “The oxygen transmission rate allows the bag and the product to breath, allowing a long shelf life.”