HURON, Ohio — The Chef’s Garden is using Extreme Microbial Technology (EMT), an air purification system, in their packing and shipping rooms to keep people and produce safe. This technology is proven to be effective against MRSA and H1N1.

“Chef’s Garden is a family farm,” said Bob Jones, Jr. “We’ve been growing vegetables for a little over 50 years. My dad started in vegetables in 1969. There have been several iterations of the business over the years. We have been operating as the Chef’s Garden for about 35 years.”

Under the guidance of Bob Jones Sr., and his sons Lee and Bob Jr., the company ships throughout the United States and to 17 countries. Or did, until COVID-19 put the skids on that. Their sales dropped 90 percent. Currently, they’re transitioning to home delivery.

Chef’s Garden is always looking for the latest technology to reduce the likelihood of microbial contamination. They started investigating EMT in June of 2019. In January of 2020, they began what was supposed to be five weeks of testing the air quality in the processing plant, installing the EMT equipment, and then testing for five more weeks. 

“We were at about week four of that pretreatment testing when COVID-19 broke,” Jones said. “Because we had researched this process and became familiar with it, it became obvious to us that this would be a great technology to address airborne virus as well as airborne bacteria.”

After COVID-19 hit, the #1 reason for installing the technology was the health of the team in the packing area. Chef’s Garden decided to put the equipment in place immediately for the safety of the people.

“There are no restaurants to buy product,” Bob Jr. said. “And I am investing a large capital (to install the technology) at a time when our sales are down by 90 percent. You can believe that it was an interesting conversation around the table of the senior managers of the organization, which includes family and non-family. We said, ‘let’s do the right thing, and the dollars will take care of themselves eventually.’ We truly believe that if you take care of your people, that’s just good business.”

EMT offers the total solution for microbial control, said Randy Mount CEO of EMT. It has not been tested for COVID-19 (a validation study is underway), but it has been tested on several other viruses, many different bacteria, and has had great results.  

“We can create ionized hydrogen peroxide in any indoor environment, which is very safe, and it’s continuous,” Mount said. “Other products out there today, whether it is HEPA filter, ultraviolet light, or chemicals, all of those are passive technologies; ours is active.”

The system offers a three-stage process that pulls air in through a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. Hydrogen peroxide is then passed through the air. Through that process, ionized high-energy clusters are produced—millions of them. This system changes the air in a way that allows it to be purified continuously. The air is disinfected, but so are the surfaces contained within the air.

“We offer the total solution for an indoor environment for anybody that’s dealing with virus, bacteria, molds,” Mount explained. “This situation is not new to us; what is new to us is protecting people. The concern was always about protecting products and processes. Now the concern is to protect people.”

Chef’s Garden first began investigating EMT to protect their products and processing, Jones said. They are always looking for the latest technology to reduce the likelihood of microbial contamination. Vegetables grow in the soil, where bacteria like e-coli, salmonella, and listeria occur naturally. 

“We have to have a way to reduce and manage that risk,” Jones said. “How we treat the soil is the first line of defense. It is survival of the fittest. The more good guys you have, the less bad. The next line of defense is washing the product before it goes to the consumer. We want to make sure that the product we’re shipping to our customers is clean.”

The farm has about 400 acres total but only produces vegetables on 100 to 125 acres every year, plus 15 acres of covered production.  They harvest and package over 600 species of different plants. The rest of the acreage is in cover crops. 

“The cover crops are not producing a salable crop, but they are harvesting nitrogen and sunlight for subsequent vegetable crops,” Jone said. “We are looking to build out organic matter. Healthy soils yield healthy crops and healthy people.”

For information on Chef’s Garden, visit www.chefs-garden.com. 

To learn about Extreme Microbial Technologies, visit www.extrememicrobial.com.