Baby Carrots: The Origin

We've all asked it - so here is the answer.

Where do baby carrots come from?
A "true" baby carrot is a carrot grown to the "baby stage", which is to say long before the root reaches its mature size. The test is if you can see a proper "shoulder" on each carrot. These immature roots are preferred by some people out of the belief that they are superior either in texture, nutrition or taste.

"Manufactured" baby carrots are what you see most often in the shops. These are simply carrot shaped slices of peeled carrots. Invented in the late 1980's by Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, these mini-versions were a way of making use of carrots which were too twisted or knobby for sale as full-size carrots.

Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tons of carrots a day because of their imperfections, and looked for a way to reclaim what would otherwise be a waste product. He was able to find an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into 5 cm lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the baby carrot.

Voila! And thus you have the baby carrot... everyone's favorite healthy, orange snack.