Comment by fuzzfactor

>Why only now?

Exactly. I never saw a reason to even get started.

If you go back not that many decades, consumers had never bought tightly-bagged vegetables because they were not available.

If you were accustomed to never having bagged lettuce growing up it mainly just seems like false convenience to begin with.

>Bagged leafy greens are notorious for outbreaks.

Naturally without data this was not well-established nor completely confirmed like it is now.

Everybody and their grandmother had just instinctively known better for centuries.

When homemakers did cut or shred lettuce it was usually intended to be eaten within the hour. Nobody would do this very far in advance at home, and only after discarding the outer leaves, then thoroughly washing the remaining part that was going to be carefully "processed" by hand, then eaten by their loving family. With clean hands after washing with soap.

Back when government regulators were actually recognized having stronger interest in food safety than today, you still couldn't expect their standards to be the very highest.

It was just better than nothing.

That same hard personal experience goes way back before the advent pf plastics.