In the past 20 years fresh and “fresh-like” vegetables have assumed a greater place in the diet of Americans and western Europeans. In the US, for example, per capita consumption of fresh vegetables increased by 26% from 1978 to 1988 (Schlimme, 1995). The introduction of minimally processed (MP) — pre-cut, washed, ready-to-use — products to the retail market responded to the growing demand for “fresh-like” vegetables. Since 1992, the retail sales of MP salads, for example, grew by 95% a year in the US, reaching a total sales volume of $600 million in 1994 (Shapiro, 1995). In France, Europe’s largest market for MP salads, 35,000 tonnes of MP salads were sold in 1993 representing 5% of the total fresh salad consumption (Harzig, 1994). It has been estimated that, by the year 2000, 50% of the sales volume of supermarket produce sections will be generated by MP products (Graziano, 1993).