Like many organic produce commodities, pea sales are small but rising. Include organic peas in your produce mix as an environmentally friendly green vegetable option for your shoppers.
Organic peas appeal to consumers who are searching for an environmentally friendly way to live. Play up the organic growing practices, especially since sugar snap peas and snow peas are eaten in the pod.
Promote organic snow peas with other organic stir-fry vegetables and sauces, especially around Chinese New Year. Include organic sugar snap peas in promotions with organic vegetable dips. Organic English peas are a good fit for promotions that include organic soup ingredients or organic bagged salads.
Use organic sugar snap peas to appeal to parents looking for a healthy snack option for their kids. Promote kid-friendly organic dips with the sugar snap peas.
Encourage consumers to look at organic snow peas and sugar snap peas as a grilling option by including them in grilling promotions with organic meat.
Because of their small sales, consider offering organic peas in packages. This minimizes worries about cross-contamination and makes it easy for consumers to grab them. Include organic English peas, snow peas and sugar snap peas in your display.
Place organic peas near other organic cooking vegetables, like red or yellow peppers or yellow squash. Peas’ green color makes a good color contrast for those vegetables.
Include preparation and serving ideas on your display to get consumers thinking of peas in a new way.
Shipping
Organic peas are often shipped in 25-pound cartons. Sugar snap peas and snow peas are often shipped in 10-pound cartons. Sugar snap peas are also available in 6-ounce consumer packs.
Grades
U.S. No. 1
U.S. fancy
There are no federal grade standards for snow or snap peas.
Handling
Temperature: green 32 F (0 C); snap, 32 to 34 F (0 to 1 C), snow 33 to 35 F (0.6 to 1.7 C)
Relative humidity: green, 85-90%; snap, 95%; snow, 50%
Mist: snow and snap, no; green, lightly
Typical shelf life: 7 to 10 days
Ethylene-sensitive (Do not store or transport ethylene-sensitive items with commodities that produce ethylene.)
Moderately sensitive to freezing injury. (Able to recover from one to two light freezings.)
The best-quality snow peas are 3 to 3½ inches long and 3⁄4 inches wide. Snap peas should be 21⁄2 to 3 inches long.
