Farm-Sized Salad Spinners

Thanks to David Conklin for the photo of Veronica and Viv!

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings are an exciting time in the Packshed. As soon as everyone has clocked in, it’s all hands on deck to harvest loose greens, which means dozens of crates and hundreds of pounds on a typical day. One lucky person takes the first truckload back to the Packshed and has the honor of being our “spinner” (and Packshed DJ) for the day. It is important to us that our customers receive their greens rinsed and crisp, so that they will last several days in the fridge. 

If you’ve ever dried your lettuce using a hand-powered salad spinner, you know just how much water clings to the leaves after they’ve been washed. Now imagine spinning hundreds of salads’ worth of leaves in a morning! Luckily our Packshed is equipped with two bathtubs for dunking greens and four electric spinners that can each spin six pounds of greens at a time. After being harvested, greens are dunked in the tubs of cold water, spun to dry, and then weighed out into boxes and bins for orders. Some batches of greens are single ingredient, like spinach and arugula, while our mixes follow changing recipes and can contain up to seven different ingredients. The person spinning is in charge of doing all the math to ensure each order is fulfilled with the correct greens.

For me, spinning feels like a big game, and each week I try to improve my efficiency and systems. There are always five more steps that need to be done, and it’s easy to get sucked into one task and forget to plan ahead. When I get into the groove, time flies and I get lost in the rhythm of filling tubs, walking between the spinners, and weighing greens. After all is done, I can enjoy the freshest salad over lunch and feel accomplished with a morning of hard work.  

~Viv