Hazel Technologies announces Malkeet Padda as VP of postharvest operations

Hazel Technologies has announced Malkeet Padda as the company’s vice president of postharvest operations. A new position within the company, Padda will be tasked with leading Hazel’s global post-harvest initiatives, developing data that demonstrates Hazel’s product performance, differentiation, and value propositions. 

Padda comes to Hazel from vertical farming industry giant Plenty Unlimited, where he was director of postharvest physiology. In that position, Padda developed the company’s postharvest program, assessing shelf-life performance of all products and collaborating across plant sciences, commercial and operations to develop and optimize new packaging solutions. Previous to that, Padda led the global postharvest R&D at driscoll’s, where he was responsible for conducting research on physiological mechanisms of shelf-life and testing emerging technologies to maintain fruit quality including, the adoption of Hazel’s Breatheway technology.

“During his time at Driscoll’s, Malkeet became intimately familiar with the successful results and growth potential of Hazel’s Breatheway technology, a knowledge base which makes him an ideal fit for this important new role at Hazel,” said Parker Booth, chief executive of Hazel Technologies.

“Beyond that, Malkeet has an incredible resume of research and sophisticated understanding of the industry that will be an asset to our company. We are excited to welcome Malkeet into our team.”

Padda was a postdoctoral associate at University of California, Davis, where he worked on numerous research projects involving strawberries, cherries, apples, and mangos. Padda earned his Ph.D. in horticulture at Louisiana State University and his MS in horticulture and BS in agriculture from Punjab Agricultural University.