The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 48 million Americans get sick from a foodborne illness each year. That means that 1 in 6 people order a meal from a commercial kitchen with an accidental side of disease-causing contaminates. 

The good news: There’s an easy way to take your food safety practices to the next level, and it all starts with onions. 

At Gills Onions, we are committed to setting the standard in food safety. Our onions are the best industry, and they deserve to be the cleanest and safest in the industry too. That’s why we go above and beyond to protect the integrity of our product through every step of processing and shipment. 

We recently overhauled more than 32,000 square feet of our facilities to replace walls, ceilings, and floors with a continuous epoxy and fiberglass material. This eliminated the presence of even the smallest seams where water could collect and allow bacteria to grow and made it easier for our staff to clean and sanitize every inch of our plant. 

Here are a few more ways our process and our product can help you increase the safety of your kitchen.  

Get Ready for a Cleaner Kitchen

Unpeeled raw onions can bring unsanitary dirt and bacteria into your kitchen. 

Whole peeled onions offer a more hygienic alternative. 

Extensive testing shows that bulk onions can contain 100 to 1000 times more bacteria, yeasts, and molds than Gills Whole Peeled Onions. Once those contaminants are in your kitchen space, it’s easy for them to spread to other surfaces and foods, and it’s difficult for you to stop them. The key is eliminating these germs before they arrive in your kitchen. 

Cleanliness Starts In-House 

Every Gills onion goes through an HACCP-approved cleaning process with chlorine dioxide treated water, metal detection, and strict temperature controls. Our in-house laboratory is fully equipped with expert staff that oversee and verify the cleanliness of both our product and our equipment.

Before our facility opens for processing each day, our QAs use strict parameters to verify that each piece of equipment and all our packaging areas meet the highest standards of cleanliness. They understand that even the smallest food safety hazards could harbor microbial growth and affect the entire supply chain. To ensure that all FDA regulations are met, our technicians measure chemical residue, environmental and product pulp temperatures, and more. 

At Gills, every employee from the maintenance department to the production team receives food safety training. We believe that food safety goes far beyond the packaging room. That’s why we monitor the conditions of our cooler, our shipping dock, our storage warehouse, and even the outside perimeter of our facility. 

All of these practices allow us to guarantee that when you receive a shipment of our whole peeled onions, you are welcoming the safest possible food into your kitchen. 

Meeting the Highest Standards 

But we don’t expect you to rely just on the word of our in-house team. Our products are also verified by a host of reputable third-party organizations including:

  • Primus 
  • AIB 
  • NSF Davis Fresh
  • Steritech
  • US Army 
  • NSF
  • NSF Quality Assurance International

Preventing Bacteria with the Pillow Pack 

Once our Whole Peeled Onions are prepared and cleaned, it’s time to pack and ship them to you, but transit can be bacteria’s best friend. 

A hard vacuum pack is the industry standard for packaging and shipping fresh onion products. Unfortunately, this method creates the perfect conditions for lactic acid bacterial growth, which spoils the product faster and results in a sour or fermented smell. 

At Gills Onions, we’ve found a better, safer, and cleaner way. 

We gently pillow pack our onions, leaving some oxygen present in the bag. This prevents water accumulation and the growth of unwanted microorganisms. 

It’s Time to Start Working Cleaner.

With Gills Whole Peeled Onions, you can be sure you’re buying the safest onions available — all ready-to-use with consistent 100% yield. 

But don’t take our word for it. Our onions speak for themselves. 

Ready to try onions the Gills Way? For more information, contact our sales department.